Contractor, Homeowner Feud Over Money in Walls

[scarpetta]

This is why you always have a written contract. The only reason why the contractor was there was to complete a specific scope of work. Everything on the owners property belongs to the owner. What if this contractor had been invited to someone's home for a BBQ and asked to use their bathroom, and before leaving it he trips and crashes through a section of sheet rock on the wall and money comes spilling out. All of the money belongs to the homeowner because all of the walls belong to the owner. If that wasn't the case then insurance companies would jump at the chance to deny a homeowner insurance money for claims involving rotting studs inside the wall or leaking pipes.

If the contractor thinks this money is his, or any part of it then I wonder if he lives in an area where the homeowners do not have mineral rights even on their own property. Is this contractor going to start "finding" oil with a pump jack that he accidentally dropped out of his truck, or maybe he "just happened" to pan for gold while he was there.

Should the pool guy hired to clean your pool be the one who goes to prison if he happens to find a dead body in the pool while performing that service? As a contractor it is my role to always act in the best interest of the customer. That is not specifically stated in the contract, but it is an unspoken agreement assumed by all. Not one penny belongs to the contractor. If the contractor had found faulty wiring in the walls and burn marks around the area would the contractor have assumed it was his responsibility to hire an electrician out of his own pocket to fix it just because he was the one who discovered it? He would say hell no.
If this contractor had completed the job and then a few weeks later the ground under the house had settled and made the foundation shift and a wall that the contractor built cracked, he would say that it he is not responsible for fixing that crack because the agreement did not cover the foundation that the house is sitting on. He would know specifically what the scope of work covered. Just because he found money in a wall doesn't mean that the scope of work changes according to what you want and don't want it to cover.

 

[Paladin]

The lady should have lied and said it was all gone.

 

[Karanjeff]

Look at it this way ..... When people leave or abandon thier storage units the units are then sold or auctioned off to the public. The former owners lose all claim. /same thing with selling a home , it's a business transaction and it's gone; they sold it as is.

As far as the contractor well I work in a federal construction management office. If one of our subs works in one of the buildings and opens a wall and finds something he has no rights to it. It should be the same for a homewoner. Now unless she had a written contract with the guy stating she would pay him for anything found while he worked he can't possibly have any claim whatsoever on anything on her property.

Depending on laws from state to state this is usually the case and in my opinion should be.

 

[Karanjeff]

And you know what else....

I think a judge in this case should make the contractor pay all the legal fees for being such an a$$ and wasting everyone's time and money!

 

[Dryad]

That's why I take out all of the loose change from the little cup holder in my car when the mechanic works on it...haha.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

This case is ridiculous! I can't believe now we have 3 lawyers duking it out over this. I think this contractor needs to stop this and leave the poor homeowners alone. I bet there is much more to this story that we have not heard. (He has it in for 'em for some other reason.)