Contractors getting paid

acesup800

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I sympathize with contractors, but I come from the other side you know what happens once a contractor is fully paid....they are gone. They don't come back for anything, so good luck on any outstanding deficiencies or warranty items. Good contractors will come back eventually, but you are last on the list. Now, I do agree on paying on time, no issues there, but no way am I paying up front for work not completed.
 

Mach1

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100% harder and harder, I have one invoice date 2 weeks after job is done and is dated April 18th and that's with another contractor. Then I see he hired another to do another job, what does he think will happen, lien on house. But that is not home owners doing so then what.... I do the same 50% to cover materials at least and no probs. Good luck guys out there and I agree with lots that is mentioned.��
 

catalac

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Seems to be the norm in our business as well sell sell sell then collect collect collect, at least 1/3 of customers are 60-90 days out and I’m sure some would not pay if weren’t hounded. What really pisses me off are the ones who grid and grid on quotes and are also slow payers, gets old. The joys of being a business owner then top that with increased taxes from Trudink and Morneau as we small business owners are tax cheats you know.... Friday rant over.
 

eclipse1966

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can you get credit insurance to cover your jobs? My business is different but all my receivables are insured which costs me approx $12,000 annually for this but one delinquent account at $40,000 grand quickly pays for itself.
 

Cyle

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I sympathize with contractors, but I come from the other side you know what happens once a contractor is fully paid....they are gone. They don't come back for anything, so good luck on any outstanding deficiencies or warranty items. Good contractors will come back eventually, but you are last on the list. Now, I do agree on paying on time, no issues there, but no way am I paying up front for work not completed.

If you're not paying for 60 days, you have tons of time to check for deficiencies, and in most cases next trades are in and will catch them before trade is even paid. I know some contractors are bad for coming back if there's a problem. But many of us aren't. If a customer is good to me, and pays on time and has an issue I will make it a priority to go back and make it right, which has pretty much never happened, and when there is it's very minor. But screw me around on payment? I will screw you coming back, if I come back depending how bad the situation was. If payment was 30 days late for example, I have no problem taking that long to come back to fix something. Don't care if it holds up the job. Same thing if I do more then one job for someone, if they pay late, they are last on the list for new jobs. Priority goes to people who pay on time. I could live with 10% deficiencies holdback for even 60 days, provided payment was reasonable terms.

Some massive companies pay on the 15th and 30th, so waiting between 15 and 30 days for payment, if they can do it, every company can.

If enough contractors got enough work and tell the generals who don't want to pay where to go, the payment terms will change.
 

gunner3006

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If you can’t afford to pay the guy that built it then you can’t afford to run it or maintain it. It’s as easy as that.

To the gentleman on here waiting for money for a hotel in gp. I used to do a wack of work for hotels here. Not anymore. This will blow your mind though. The three big hotels here in town have all went bankrupt in the last three years.
 

Cyle

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Do projects ever just mysteriously burn down for no good reason?

The big condo project in Edmonton that burnt a few years ago was the framer who did it, because there was so many deficiencies. I've seen/heard of small things, like oil thrown on stucco. But arson? I don't think many people are that stupid.

If I was pissed about not getting paid I might do things like take my material back, maybe dump a load of dirt blocking access to site, etc. But doing something you'll go to jail for? Absolutely stupid.

Never come to that though. The most i've done is withheld information about my work screwing up them from continuing until I was paid.
 

Ron H

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Sometimes it’s better to scale back and dump the poor payers...
After 45 days you truely have no recourse. It may also allow more time to solidify the good business relationships and even pick up couple more good clients.
In some cases scaling back actually improves the bottom line. I’ve found with some clients the margins are just too tight and you find yourself “trading dollars”... I don’t need the practice, I need Polaris parts..
 
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