Big mistake. Without reliving the painful detail, virtually everything they committed to didn’t happen. They were supposed to complete the job in 10 days, and by the time they abandoned the project over 2 months had elapsed. We had made progress payments because some of the work was getting done, but when I saw where things were headed, we wouldn’t make any more payments until the job was complete – which never happened. They gave us every reason in the book as to why it wasn’t their fault, but as time progressed it became obvious that a lot of what they had said at the beginning wasn’t true. A key thing was that they had simply sub-contracted another company to do most of the work, when they had represented they were going to do it themselves. In the end, these clowns ended up going bankrupt, and not only didn’t finish the job, but left the sub-contractor they had hired to do the job high and dry. They took all the money we had given them until I cut them off, and hadn’t paid a dime to the guys who really did the work. Well, things really fell apart at the end. They went bankrupt, all of their equipment got seized, and one of the partners ran down to the U.S. to avoid a series of legal problems he had. The one problem, however, was that these guys had registered a lien on our property before they disappeared. The owner of the sub-contractor finally called me asking if they were going to get paid. I said that I would ensure they got paid, but because the original guys had liened our property, we couldn’t pay them until that lien was dealt with. To protect their own interest, they also registered a lien on our property. I told them that once our lawyer had dealt with the original lien, then we would be clear to pay off them off as sub-contractors. No problem. They had completed all the work, and paid for most of the materials themselves. The work that they did was done very well, so it was only natural that we were pleased to pay them for what they had done. What we didn’t want to do is pay the original guys any more, and have them run away with everything! Our lawyer filed the necessary paperwork to challenge the original lien, and last week that lien was extinguished. So the original contractor’s claim against us is history. Now, we only have the sub-contractor’s lien on the property, and we can pay that off without worrying about the original company coming back after us. So today, I called the sub-contractor, and told him that I was ready to pay off their lien, because I had been successful wiping the other lien out. The guy was speechless. He couldn’t believe I was calling him to give him money! I said to him, “Lionel, you sound pretty surprised that I’m going to pay you off.” He responded, “Yeah. Yes we are. In fact, we can’t believe it. We deal with a lot of people, and I’ll tell you Greg, very few of them actually do what they say they’re going to do. We’re touched. I don’t know what to say”. Lionel’s coming down tomorrow to my office to pick up my lawyer’s trust cheque for the full amount of the lien, and to sign off the release of the lien so I can have it removed and be done with the whole mess. To me, it’s a simple matter of paying people for work they did. The reaction I got reminded me how many people in the world don’t do what they say they’re going to do. Wanna be a stand out in the business world? Do what you say you’re gonna do. That’s it.]]>