Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
misssing architecht
Hello,
Over a year a go, we hired an architecht to draw up some remodeling plans for our home in ALbany, CA. He has taken one year to finish the last phase of our plan and is demanding the remainder of the balance owed to him $1500. We don't want to pay him because we feel that he has taken too long and has not been in contact with us since January 2006. He's threatening to sue in small claims court. Will he have a valid lawsuit?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: misssing architecht
This all depends on what the contract between you and the architect states. Was there a �time of the essence� clause? The courts do not care about feelings, just contracts and performance.
Other questions to ponder are, was there anything that you may have done to cause the delay? This means, meetings that you could not attend to discuss revisions, unreturned phone calls by you, taking too long to respond to an idea or a potential building code violation raised by the architect, etc.
Next, are you happy with his work, or if not, are you going to use his plans anyway?
These are just some of the factors to think about.
Good luck.