Legal Question in Construction Law in Louisiana

My mother had hired a man who did some remodeling work on her house in LA cause we were getting ready to sell it. We live in Texas and so we were constantly driving back and forth between both residence. She paid for majority of the work in advance. After leaving LA for a week, we returned to the house with our storage door unlocked and missing several tools. We had no proof to pin it on them but it definitely raised our suspicions, along with the overly priced quote they gave us on the sloppy job they did inside the house. Again we already paid in advance most of the amount he quoted us, however he still has some major outside work he was supposed to do. After we continually tried to get in contact with him and his wife to see when they were going to come and finish up the work, they would keep avoided us and giving excuses such as car broke down, was sick or was out of town. We decided to give up on getting them to finish the work, instead we asked them to give us an itemized receipt for all the work they have already done and the materials. It's been about two months of playing phone tag with them when they finally said they would have the receipt ready for us. So now we are planning to make a trip there to pick it up in person, just in case we have some questions we need to ask them once we receive it. We made a call just today to make arrangements to meet up and get the receipt but this time it was harder to get a hold of them because they keep hanging up on us. We all know the famous "I can't hear you, hello? hello?" and hang up. then you call back and they pick up and hang up on you again and again..... Hours later we try calling them and this time the conversation was recorded and what we got from them is that they are not going to give us a receipt anymore and they are calling us "bitch" and "bully" and that they want to call the cops on us for "harassment" when all we are trying to do is get the receipt that was promised to us. What we want to know is if we can take them to court to get that receipt and receive some funds back for unfinished work and if so what would be the best route for us to do so?


Asked on 8/14/11, 6:55 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Martha Amanda Mandi Lucas Mandie Seale Lucas

You have both civil and criminal actions. Louisiana has a contractor fraud statute whereby the contractor must finish the work in 45 days of have good reason why not. Either the attorney general's office of the parish District Attorney will handle the matter. If the La. Attorney General, you report directly to them. If the parish DA, make the complaint to the sheriff or city police.

You can also file suit civilly. Both will have restitution provisions.

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Answered on 8/23/11, 6:08 pm


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