So, last year my spouse and I decided to spruce up our property. We hired a landscaping company to give our driveway a makeover, fix some retaining walls, remove a few trees, do some seeding, irrigation, and planting. They did an awesome job, but it took a whopping 11 months to finish. Throughout the project, everything seemed hunky-dory. We had a contract in place, the billing went smoothly, and they were cool with any changes we wanted to make. Communication was on point, and they tied up all the loose ends when the job was done. And let me tell you, the end result was top-notch. We were stoked with the outcome.
Then, about a month after the project wrapped up, I got a call from the subcontractor who handled the asphalt. He asked me if I had paid our final bill. I was a bit taken aback but assured him that we had settled up. The kicker was, he hadn’t been paid by the main contractor. He dropped a bombshell saying he might slap a lien on our property if he didn’t get his dues. Cue the panic.
I wasted no time and called up the contractor, leaving a voicemail. To my surprise, a young lady from their team called me back within half an hour. I spilled the beans about the asphalt guy’s warning, and she promised to sort things out with the project manager. Seemed legit, so I didn’t sweat it too much.
A few days later, the hydro seeding guy gave me a buzz. He was a total pro, but he mentioned he was having a tough time getting a response from the contractor. I cut to the chase and asked him if he had been paid. Turns out, he was still waiting on his paycheck, and they owed him for a couple of other gigs too. That’s when the alarm bells started ringing.
I circled back to the asphalt dude, and he dropped a bombshell – the contractor had axed their entire crew and bolted the doors shut. He had talked to other subcontractors who were also getting the cold shoulder in terms of payment, and some of these folks had worked on our project too. The asphalt crew warned me to brace myself for a flurry of liens landing on our property. Can they actually do that? We had coughed up everything we owed to the contractor. We didn’t have any agreements with these subcontractors; our deal was solely with the landscaping company.