"Dow was a good customer however i painted his home installed two windows replaced siding on fireplaces, shed .there were a few other things he also wanted done i agreed to do them no charge ."
-- To be clear, Joel, you are speaking of the 'no charge' items that came up awhile after our original agreement had begun. Because the originally agreed-upon work had gone on for *so* long at that point, you suggested you would not charge for labor on some new/added items but that I would pay all materials costs - yes.
I did not request you do anything for 'materials cost only', but I did agree to your offer to reward our patience with you. At the same time, I mentioned more than once that I thought it important to finish the original set of work before moving to the newer items. That was just as much for your benefit as it was for my preference.
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"When the work was completed on the contract he wanted hold on to the remaining money on the contract until the free work was done did not think that was fair"
-- Respectfully, Joel, this is absolutely untrue. The originally agreed-upon set of work is *still* not complete - even at this point. I'm not sure what would lead you to say/believe otherwise. More importantly, there is no part of me that would hold anyone working on our behalf to finish 'free labor' tasks they had offered before paying them what had been previously owed for their labor and materials. Further, I would never even suggest that.
Early on, before the latter checks we wrote for what you said were more materials that had been purchased and some that would be purchased soon, we had given you checks totaling $3600 or more toward the original set of work. I have those cashed check copies if you would like to see them. A number of contractors have performed various services here over the years for many different reasons, and all have been paid on-time or earlier than their contract required. The most common was half up front and half upon completion. I voluntarily exceeded that proportion with you early in our agreement.
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"A list of the free work included installing gutters with DOW'S help exterior electrical outlets"
-- I am not sure why you mention these as shining examples here. Though you did suggest you *would* do these things for 'materials cost only' in the latter set of work, the gutters and adding an outlet to the front porch are among the things that either didn't get finished or were never begun. To this day, we have neither a porch outlet nor any gutters, though we wrote you checks in January and March of this year that you had requested - in order to be reimbursed for materials and to purchase more materials, including the gutters you said would be installed the day after the March check. You explicitly stated the monies were for purchases, did not mention any contract or other installments (as we had paid $3600 or more already), and personally assured me that you would furnish receipts for the amounts given you on those two checks. We have never received a single receipt from you for anything, barely saw you here in the two months between writing those checks even though we were often available, and have never seen you since writing the second of those checks. Our payout to you currently totals $4650.
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"paint and install old garden window in shed the sheetrock work inside home"
-- We appreciated you moving the old garden window to the attached shed, even though the city is potentially making us redo it so that we can pass an upcoming code inspection. As for the spot sheetrock repairs you started, they are all still unfinished, but thanks for making progress on them. In addition to the outside paint overspray and stray brush marks that I'll need to correct at some point (I can send pics if you like), there is also texture overspray inside on the smooth closet door next to the small foyer wall you started but never finished. You also have the one can of paint I gave you from the foyer wall, and you left it unpainted and left us without the paint color name or ID number....so I have a difficult time replacing it as it was years ago that we bought that.
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"$1,100 payment it was $900 & for me the only receip needed was for gutters"
-- Total of $1050, actually: check #1252 for $350 on Jan 23rd and check #1254 for $700 on Mar 11th. Wouldn't you agree that it's important to provide receipts for the entire amount on a bill, rather than just a third of the amount that a client paid, explicitly for materials? read more
