I’ve been a foreman for GC, GC, sub for GC, carpenter for property maintenance GC, and now a fly on the wall for my wife’s interactions with multi family property managers and owners.
Slow pay is the main reason I got out of construction, and refused to be a part of commercial jobs. At the end I only worked for residential clients and required payment in full at the end of each week, and payment for anticipated materials for the upcoming week, or I packed up and went to the next client. Even draw schedules can be setup for weekly draws. Good clients with good pay history never complain. It’s BS that contractors shouldn’t ask for money up front - the best construction lawyer in the Treasure Valley said reguardless of contracts or terms, the side with the money always has the advantage and every contract has weaknesses - he loved the way I billed clients. One client was a construction attorney for a large corporate builder and showed me the ridiculously long contract that’s actually required to cover all the bases - like 75 pages long.
We know dozen of multi family management companies, and there are always a few that slow pay every time - even without a good excuse. When a manager’s bonus is based on financials for the property, even though the expense is incurred when it’s completed, big management companies sometimes have weird metrics that sometimes have a lot of incentives for dragging feet into the next quarter. There’s more disfunction in property management than most contractors realize.
I’ve worked for three crooks, maybe four, kind of five - it’s important to know how they operate. Crook #1 was the smooth talker that talked subs and suppliers into waiting until the big 96% draw at the end, then skipped town about every other year. We had big clients, even attorneys as clients. I could tell he wasn’t what he claimed because of the secrecy and he kept me and the other foreman in the dark - I warned all the subs something isn’t right, and every one that let him slow pay got stiffed. He disappeared and was tracked down in New York by a private investigator - he had done this for so long he was very good at hiding any assets and last I heard, even with a judgement against him the clients he screwed haven’t seen a dime.
Crook #2 was a master class in commercial construction rip-off. It was like living through a Donald Trump development project - not a single sub was paid the full amount, subs stupid enough to work without a contract were screwed completely, GC’s that agreed to have payroll pass through their books got screwed and there were many of them, even an entire team of accountants, marketing, architects, designers, and about 10 employee carpenters were constantly juggled and pitted against each other to cut each other’s throat and save money. $13M project and the asshat developer at the top just moves from big job to big job - talking BS nonstop. Legalized robbery.
Crook #3 might be seen as a crook, I think he is. I did a lot of finish work for him - turned out his family is in the bar business, and bars get sued a lot, so they are very good at being judgement proof. Building was leased from one corporation, construction tools and equipment were leased from another, and operating capital was handled by another corporation. The strangest feeling to wait at the bank until wages were deposited and we rushed the drive through - sometimes the guy at the end wasn’t fast enough and someone with a judgement against the company garnished all the money and the carpenter had to wait for more money to be deposited. If you get screwed by this guy, good luck trying to get any money out of him. I worked on his attorney’s house and the attorney explained how it all worked - his specialty was setting up multiple corps for high risk companies.
Crook #4 is an attorney that also owns a construction company and an engineering company. He sues contractors, uses his engineer to say something was screwed up, and then gets a bid to fix it from his GC. It’s a very successful way to get money if the original contractor was in the wrong or not. Legalized robbery. He was pissed when my bid required payment in full up front, and he couldn’t find anyone else to build it because of his reputation. I’ll dance the day he drops dead.
The funniest client that ever screwed me was a little old lady as sweet as my mother - she let carpenters work on her new house, claimed to go visit her sister for a few weeks, then refuse to pay when she got back. I was something like the 21st carpenter with a lien on her property - all her property and assets outside of the house were carefully hidden. She’s lucky nobody burned it to the ground.
