We think the contractor walked

The title says it all. While on our hike yesterday, when every rock looked like tile to us, we got this text:

“Unfortunately due to personal issues my wife is going to finish the duration of this project with you most of it’s down to just numbers and she does all of that part with the company anyway her phone number is…thanks for everything take care”

I don’t know what those personal issues might be, but this text came fairly soon after he had requested extra funds, and instead of a check we had submitted a spreadsheet detailing how we’ve paid him significantly more than he’s actually paid for contractors and materials (he’s behind in paying them), and that we weren’t going to pay him any more until the project is complete.

We were supposed to have only paid 50% at halfway, and 50% when the project is complete. But we paid extra because we weren’t being careful enough keeping up with the exact numbers, and we knew we had added a number of items to the original scope.  It made sense to pay additional since we had increased the size of the project.

But then recently we could tell he was starting to struggle with the project, so we removed a lot of the extra items that he had not yet started. (We’ll still do those items, but we’ll handle them ourselves.) Removing the extra scope made the percentage we’ve paid go up to 80%. (50% or 60% of a larger project = 80% of the original project). At 80%, we are very vulnerable to him simply taking the money and walking off the project.

I don’t think we mind having him gone – turns out he wasn’t really value-added. But he owes his suppliers and his labor. We need him to continue to pay for the materials and labor that we’ve already paid him for, so the work will continue.