[Porsche-O-Phile]

Either way, you still have to have a good contract to start with in order to protect yourself. I'm not saying Byron did this poorly (he mentioned having an attorney on board, which leads me to believe he did at least some things wisely), but in general, residential owners are notoriously cheap and tend to skimp when it comes time to having contracts drafted up. Instead of using standard forms, such as the AIA ones (which cost money) or having a lawyer draft them up (which costs even more money) a lot of owners decide to "play lawyer" to save a few bucks and in doing so, leave loopholes big enough for even a dumb contractor (with enough experience, who knows how to play the game) to drive a truck through. Word to the wise - construction contracts are NOT a place to save money on a job. In general, every dollar spent up front on having good contract documents drawn up will save you ten down the road in potential problems. No joke and it's not just self-serving architect propaganda here.

Anyway, that said, even if Byron succeeds in getting resolution on this, it'll be a long time before he sees any money and it wouldn't surprise me if the contractor files bankruptcy and is in business two weeks later under a different name doing the same thing to someone else. Happens all the time.

FL has an especially bad reputation for sleazy contracting. Lots of "fly-by-nighters" down there.

Keep us posted - hope this works out okay.