Legal Question in Construction Law in Florida

My company hired a general contractor to complete engineering and architectural drawings required to get an approved building permit. We paid 20K upfront. There was no contract that he would get the building project, we wanted to see how he handled this first phase and compare against other contractors prices once we had the drawings from the architect. Now the contractor is going around town angry that we may be considering others and saying he was promised the job and it was verbally agreed on when all we agreed to for sure was the work done in the invoice we paid for. Can we be liable? Is he right to assume he had a verbal contract when we say no and he is telling others yes. Everything was conditional on his performance and pricing.


Asked on 9/20/10, 11:13 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Randall Gilbert Gilbert & Caddy P.A.

Although it is not abnormal to contract to have a job performed in phases your set of facts are unusual, since normally contractors are not just hired to obtain a permit, but do no work, based upon the facts as you have presented them, it sounds like there may have been an anticipation of future work but nothing contractually agreed upon. I am not sure why there would not have been a contract when you just spent $20K. Hopefully there are emails that would memorialize what the parties agreements were.

Unfortunately when you are left with a verbal contract it is up to a judge or jury to determine whose version of the contractual terms are correct. Is it the owners? Or is it the Contractors? That is why Samuel Goldwyn Meyer used to say, "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

Good Luck,

Randall Gilbert

Board Certified Construction Lawyer

www.TheConstructionLawyers.com

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Answered on 9/25/10, 11:24 am


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