Legal Question in Business Law in California

Contract Deception

I've obtain--name removed--loan thru my city's home improvement loan program.--name removed--city coordinator wrote up--name removed--contract and scope of work for general contractors to bid. I chose--name removed--particular contractor which the city approved. The contractor was sent--name removed--copy of the contract by the city's housing coordinator as--name removed--Word Document. This contractor used the Word document to alter the scope of work that was written by the city to save him money. I was not informed of this change when I signed the documents. It was only one sentence in the whole contract which made all the difference. It allowed him to purchase--name removed--lower quality windows. Since the contract allows me to cancel the aggreement ''at will''. I've excercised that right. I did not allow him to install these windows. My question is this:

Did the contractor break the law? Was it even--name removed--valid contract? While I intend to pay for the windows which I am probably going to discard, should I really pay for them?


Asked on 7/23/06, 3:52 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

Re: Contract Deception

This is a rather common example of two legal principles intersecting: (1) that a person signing a contract is presumed to have read it; and (2) no one should profit as a result of his fraud.

In most such cases, judges will have a strong tendency to rule against the person committing the fraud and in favor of the person who didn't read every word before signing. I think you would have a good chance of having the contract, or at least the part dealing with the windows, declared null and void. An important part of your case would be having the city back up your testimony by confirming that the contract had been altered after being approved.

This is why such documents should be produced as .pdf (Adobe) files rather than as word processor files - harder to alter.

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Answered on 7/23/06, 12:59 pm


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