Legal Question in Construction Law in Michigan

Charge back at 88 days now can't lien

I have a customer who had his crawl space insulated buy our company. We do have a signed contracted and when the work was completed the customer paid by visa. About 88 days after the job was finished he contacted his visa and stated he did not get what he paid for so visa did a charge back and took $1950.00 from our account. We contacted our merchant and he asked us to send him the contract so we did and the money was placed back in our account. 1 week later the merchant pulled the money out again and said if we wanted them to open an investigation it would cost us about $700.00. Our merchant also told us that because we do charge cards by phone we do not have a signed receipt all we have is a signed contract. We can not lien the property it has been over 90 day's. And I don't think it is fair for visa to pull money from our account once they had the contract with the visa # and signature on it.


Asked on 2/11/06, 12:58 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Don Darnell Darnell & Lulgjuraj, P.C.

Re: Charge back at 88 days now can't lien

There is case law where persons have manupulated the process whereby the contractor does not file a lien in 90 days, in circumstances not unlike yours, and the appellant courts have upheld a lien filed later than 90 days when filed in good faith. You can always sue in contract, but if you file a lien, you can sue in foreclosure of that lien.

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Answered on 2/11/06, 2:38 pm


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