Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Services not performed by date on contract

Winning a suit for breach of contract does not require proof of fault, so the contractor's attempt to deny fault is not very helpful to them. Unless they assert "impossibility" as a defense in a contract action, the delay in obtaining the permit won't matter; if they do assert impossibility, then you can point to their delay to overcome the claim (after all, timely completion would have been possible if they had sought the permit earlier). Either way, the contract called for completion by a specific date and they didn't meet their obligation. This seems like a breach.

The real question here is how much you will be damaged by a delay. If you are not going to be inconvenienced much, the damages may not be worth suing over. If you have a major event that will be affected by this -- let's say you plan to host a barbecue for the governor and will now have to cancel -- your damages will not be compensable unless the contractor knew of these plans in advance.

Also, many construction contracts include "liquidated damages" clauses that specify how much the contractor can be forced to pay for delays. If your agreement has such a clause, you may be bound by its provisions.

Some people in your position might think they can get the pool they contracted for and avoid paying based on the delay, but the law doesn't work this way. You may have the option of declaring a breach now and terminating their services, but you would probably increase the delay this way and you would still have to pay the contractor for whatever work they have done so far.