Tag Archives: construction lawyer

Selecting the Right Home Improvement Contractor in Massachusetts

By on August 14, 2017

Selecting a contractor for a home improvement project is both exciting and fraught with peril. The right one can deliver your dream home, and the wrong one can make your living space a nightmare for an extended period of time.  Fortunately, Massachusetts maintains strong consumer protections against the latter in M.G.L. c. 142A, the Home Improvement Contractor statute.

Contractors are required by law to include specific provisions and notices in contracts with consumers. Homeowners should thoroughly investigate the contractor up front and be well-versed in their rights. 

Construction consumers should consider some practical tips is selecting their residential construction or home improvement contractor:  

(1)      Do thorough research and get multiple quotes. Many websites provide reviews and commentary on contractors from prior customers, such as yelp and angies’s list.

(2)      Make sure the contractor you choose is registered as a Massachusetts home improvement contractor;   

(3)      Verify that the construction supervisor the company plans to use to oversee the project day-to-day has a valid construction supervisor’s license; and  

(4)      Insist upon a complete written contract, signed by both parties, prior to making any deposits or starting any work.  At a minimum, your contract should include the following information:

          a physical address for the contractor, not just a post office box, along with the name of the salesperson and the construction supervisor for your project;

          a start date and a completion date for work, so that you don’t find yourself lower on the contractor’s priority list than other projects soon after making your deposit;

          a clear scope of work, including as much detail as possible.  If you’ve agreed upon certain brands for hardware or fixtures, be sure those brands appear in the contract; and

          specific benchmarks for making progress payments, including the amount for each such payment.

Do not make final payment to your contractor until all of the work is completed to your satisfaction.  Be sure to ask for a copy of the contractor’s insurance policy and call the insurance company to verify that it is current.

For substantial projects, have a qualified construction lawyer review your contract prior to signing it.  A small investment with a construction attorney can save thousands of dollars and immense frustration by avoiding traps for the unwary hidden in contract documents and by adding appropriate layers of protection into your contract that homeowners are not likely to add on their own.

Considerations for the Effective Use of Email in Connection with Construction Projects

By on June 7, 2016

Email is an indispensable tool for contractors that can streamline communication regarding the many facets of a construction project that aren’t strictly found in a project’s plans and specifications, or in the relevant contract documents.  When used well, email can be invaluable to document the course of a project.  When it’s disregarded or treated haphazardly, email can fail for its essential purpose – meaningful communication – or worse still it can be used to turn your own words against you.  The following are several considerations when using email to communicate regarding your construction project.

Who is my audience? 

This isn’t a trick question, but it is more nuanced than it might initially seem.  In the first, instance, the obvious audience for each email is its addressees.  Those addressees, however, may be only the first audience for your email.  If a dispute arises regarding your project, you should anticipate that the audience for your email might grow exponentially to include corporate principals, engineers, architects, attorneys, arbitrators, judges or juries.  As a result email correspondence regarding your project should be limited to professional matters, focused on the subject matter to be addressed and as clear as possible regarding the subject matter being addressed.  When developing your email practices, it’s important to remember that your audience could extend beyond the initial addressees.  This should help you to focus your message on the relevant considerations for your communication and help you avoid sending emails that you’ll later need to explain.

Why am I sending this email?          

If you can answer this question succinctly, you’re off to a good start in drafting an effective project email.  The “high-level” answer to this question generally should be reflected in the subject line of your email.  The details that follow in the email should be limited to addressing the matter(s) in the subject line.  Discussion of matters unrelated to the expressed subject should be avoided and saved for another email, letter or conversation.  Consider writing a new email, with a new subject line, when your message no longer addresses matters in the subject line, rather than continuing a chain of email that has gone off point.  If you follow this practice, you’ll help the recipient to quickly identify the reason for your email, prioritize your email among the many received on a given day and help both you and your recipient to refer back to the email, or chain of emails, later regarding the particular issue(s) addressed.  As a side benefit, you’ll appear focused, organized and professional in your communication regarding the project.

Conversely, if you can’t answer this question, whatever you intend to write is probably best left unsaid, or at least, unrecorded.  Among the reasons you should avoid sending a project email are anger, annoyance, personal reasons, sarcasm or humor.  Nobody like a humorless person, but email is tone-deaf or worse – susceptible to multiple tones.  Like a diamond, email is forever.  Once you’ve pressed “send,” it’s safe to assume that your email will be part of the project record forever.  And like a diamond, it’s for “better or worse.”

When is an email (or letter) absolutely necessary?

There are instances when it’s critical to communicate to another party with email or a letter.

Deviations from plans, specifications or the contract:  Each time you’re asked or told to do something beyond the scope of work or that differs from the plans, specifications or your contract, you should confirm what you’re asked or told to do in writing.  An email confirming your prior communication(s), your understanding of what’s been requested and your intended resolution of that matter is critical to documenting your project accurately and favorably.  An email or letter addressing these matters achieves at least three important objectives; it provides a contemporaneous record of the event, it provides the requesting party notice of your intentions and it provides the party receiving your correspondence the opportunity to respond, to object or to further clarify the information you’ve provided. 

Particularly with respect to change directives from an owner or general contractor, often it will not be enough to correspond with the opposing party regarding the change, and other steps will need to be taken.  It is important, however, to use the email as a means to establish the circumstances of the change request, your understanding of what has been requested and how and when you intend to address the request.  These matters can significantly affect the likelihood that you’ll be compensated for change requests later if a dispute regarding your performance arises.      

Disputes:  Because your project communication is a significant piece of the overall record of a project, it’s critical to fill in details regarding matters of dispute with your communications.  For the reasons previously noted, your email communications can be used to reflect and confirm oral communications between parties whose positions and recollections may differ and change over time.  An email confirming the contents of a recent discussion, particularly regarding matters in dispute, can prove invaluable to establishing the circumstances, your actions and your position if a dispute ripens into arbitration or litigation.  Your contemporaneous email correspondence can serve as a powerful and credible tool to establish your version of the events regarding any dispute.

Setting the Record Straight:  For the same reasons that the record of events created in your email can be used to support your version of events, it is vital to respond to inaccurate recitations of conversations or events from another party.  In the long hindsight of a project, inaccuracies that go unchallenged by simple omission become more difficult to discredit.  This is not to say that you must respond vigilantly to each and every minor inaccuracy.  Rather, it is important that you do not let another party’s version of events control the written narrative of the course of the project.  Long before any matter becomes contentious, you’re well served by addressing, in writing, significant inaccuracies in another party’s written narrative of events that are important to explain your actions or address historical inaccuracies.  Sometimes it will be important to make sure the record is accurate as to whether something was done on a Monday or Tuesday, but more often than not, it’s more important to know in what sequence a particular task was performed or whether a certain discussion took place before or after certain work was performed. 

It’s not essential that you resolve whose version of events are correct:  generally, you’ll be able to verify what happened by other means as well.  It is crucial, however, that your version of events exists in the written record so as to avoid the scenario where only your testimony is left to challenge the other party’s testimony and their unchallenged written version of events that you failed to address contemporaneously.  Under those circumstances, it is significantly more difficult to establish your version of the events or challenge the credibility of another party whose testimony is corroborated by a written record of the events.       

Developing consistent email practices can be a powerful, if underappreciated tool in the contractor’s toolbox.  In addition to developing clear and credible records of your projects, you’ll be prepared to address questions regarding the performance of your work in a consistent and compelling way.  Better still, you may limit or avoid disputes through consistent application of your good email practices.  And for those disputes that can’t be avoided, when you sit down with your construction attorney to discuss the matter and review your records of the project, it’s likely that you will have a better prepared project file than your opposing party.

Do You Have a Contract You Can Lien On?

By on July 21, 2015

To file a mechanic’s lien in Massachusetts, a contractor must have a written contract with the property owner (or owner’s authorized agent).  Subcontractors and material suppliers must show that written contracts exist for their labor and materials as well.  Although this may seem like a rather simple requirement, in some instances whether a written contract exists is not entirely clear.

In 1996, the legislature amended Mass. Gen. Laws c. 254 (the mechanic’s lien statute) to define “written contract” as “any written contract enforceable under the commonwealth.” This means courts can rely on standard contract law to determine whether a written contract is sufficient for a mechanic’s lien.  Taking into account the new amendment, the appellate court in Harris v. Moynihan Lumber of Beverly, Inc., concluded that a memorandum or writing sufficient to satisfy the Massachusetts statute of frauds should also meet the requirement of a written contract for purposes of the statute. The statute of frauds requires a writing “signed by the party to be charged,” in the event that a contract cannot be performed in less than one year’s time. The requirements of the statute of frauds are less stringent than the pre-1996 standard of “an entire and continuing arrangement in writing.”

On many occasions since 1996, Massachusetts courts addressed the question of what constitutes a written contract for purposes of establishing a valid mechanic’s lien.  While the cases have led to disparate results, several rules have emerged.  First, in order for a contract to be enforceable, the terms need not all appear on the same document.  Taken together, however, the series of writings must contain the essential terms of a contract, such as price, quantity, time of performance, and type of material or services.  Noreastco Door & Millwork, Inc. v. Vahradahatu of Massachusetts, Inc. (finding that a one-page cover sheet “original proposal” and a one-page reply memorandum did not constitute a contract for the purposes of the mechanic’s lien statute).  The purpose of this requirement is to ensure project owners have adequate notice of contract terms, so they may make informed choices to protect their interests.  Second, at least one of the documents being used as evidence of a contract must be signed by the party against whom the contract is being enforced (note that e-mail acceptance may be sufficient for a signature).  Third, the connection between the papers may be established by oral evidence, which, taken together with the content of the documents, shows the intent of the parties was to form a contract.  In Moynihan Lumber, Inc., the court found that a series of documents including a sales contract, credit application, and price quotations taken together constituted a contract for mechanic’s lien purposes.  In contrast, that same year the court in Nat’l Lumber Co. v. Fort Realty Corp., found no sufficient written contract because the documents lacked information on the price and quantity of the supplies, which is necessary information for owners to possess in order to protect their interests.  In Scituate Ray Precast Concrete Corp. v. Intoccia Const. Co. Inc., however, a series of signed delivery tickets and their corresponding invoices satisfied the statute of frauds and met the requirements of the mechanic’s lien statute, provided that the person signing for the deliveries was authorized to do so.

The best case scenario is for all parties to sign a single document with clear terms. The realities of the construction industry frequently do not allow that luxury.  When a fully signed contract with containing all the necessary terms hasn’t been executed, it is important to consult with a Massachusetts construction attorney to determine whether the documents you have are sufficient to support your mechanic’s lien.