Need contractor estimate on incomplete new construction - suggestions?

[elvis123]

Hi there,

I'm wondering whether anyone here has encountered this situation before and what you did about it.

The short version: we need a licensed contractor to come and give us an estimate on a few things in our house (uncompleted punch-list items).

The long version: We moved into a new construction house a year ago. It came with a 12-month warranty from the builder which ended a few weeks ago. There were tons of punch-list items from the home inspector and many of them were taken care of (finally) but some still remain. Despite our imprecations to the builder to come take care of the rest it was the age-old runaround. Promising to come and not showing up, sending contractors to "check out" the problem and promising to get back to us, it never happens, just a constant dodge. Then in the 11th month the contractor calls and says explicitly that he's been to our house enough times and fixed enough things and he's not spending anymore money on our house, and if we want the rest of the punch-list done we'll have to pay out of pocket. We felt we had no recourse but to hire a lawyer.

When they saw we weren't bluffing about hiring a lawyer that lit a fire under them (sort of) and they came promptly and did a few more things and promised in writing to our lawyer to do the rest. Now more time has passed, it remains incomplete, and the builder had the nerve to call us last week to tell us again that he would only complete the work if we paid him! Even though he's now committed to doing it in writing.

It seems he really wants to litigate and this is all just a big stalling game to him, so we're proceeding. The next step for us is to get an estimate on everything from a licensed contractor so we can present it in court and make the builder pay for it. We figure it's no more than $2000 worth of work but we're not positive.

Any recommendations, and also do contractors charge to come and do estimates?

Thanks anyone for your help, advice, war stories.

[bspecks]

Elvis,
Contractors don't typically charge to give estimates, however they expect a fair chance to do the work, and will normally put a 30 day limit on their quotes. You may have a hard time getting a contractor to quote the work if you tell them the situation. (which you should) Depending on what you need I may be able to help. We're a licensed general contractor, and we also do consulting work for attorneys and insurance claims. If you give me a little more detail on what kind of work is left to complete, I can give you some advice and possibly an estimate.
Brian