Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Contractors.. protect yourself!

I just added an arbitration and interest clause to my contracts to protect myself from scammers and non-paying customers. Believe it or not most fraud is done by customers or non licensed contractors. With an arbitration clause you can save yourself the process of putting a lien on a property. (I guess you still can if you want the extra work)
here is my arbitration clause:

Disputes arising out of or related to this agreement shall be resolved in accordance with this provision. In the first instance the parties will attempt to resolve such disputes through open communication and dialog. To this end if a party has a concern about an actual or possible dispute, and there is not otherwise a reason to give a Notice of Dispute, the concerned party will informmally notify the other party of the nature of the dispute and explore the possibility of reaching an agreeable resolution in writing, prior to initialising a Notice of Dispute. If the parties cannot resolve the matter by informal dialog or there is a reason to give notice immediatly, either party may give notice of dispute to the other party. The Notice of Dispute shall state the nature of the dispute and the corrective action necessary to remedy the dispute. After notice of dispute the parties shall first attempt to resolve the dispute through mediation. The contractor shall agree on a single mediator who will be The American Arbitration Association. Costs of mediation incured shall be paid by the Homeowner. If the dispute has not been resolved by mediation within 30 days after notice of Dispute then the dispute shall be resolved by binding arbitration in accordance with Michigan Uniform Arbitration Act, and judgement upon the award redered by the arbitrator may be enforced in any court of competant jurisdiction . Homeowner agrees to pay a Contractor penalty of 2% per month (apr 24%) on any delinquent monies not paid to the Contractor within three days of completion.

20 comments:

  1. Good information to be aware of. Thanks for the post.

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  2. Protecting yourself is a great idea. People will do just about anything to get a buck.

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  3. I wondered what those contractors do.

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  4. Always good to cover yourself just in case. Thanks, Man.

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  5. interesting, i always thought contractors would be the shady ones

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  6. Doesn't seem fair that the homeowner always has to pay for arbitration. Not sure of a way to solve that, though.

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  7. Oh that's very good, thanks for sharing!

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  8. Really? Good to know. Check me out, alphabetalife.blogspot.com

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  9. Well that would save hassle

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