On Jan 15, 9:47*am, wrote:
On Jan 14, 1:19*pm, wrote:

I have some friends in the industry (building/demo, etc.), and they
advised that I mention the following things to the builder as
"consequences" for him not refunding the money he owes me:

How about the INS? *Do you have any reason to think he might be using
"undocumented guest workers"?

After the Florida hurricanes a few years back, *I don't think there
was anyone who spoke English working for the cleanup contractor. I'll
eat my hat if any of them were legal.

I don't think they spent much effort worrying about OSHA regs either.


And how is is reporting the contractor to INS or OSHA going to get the
OP his money back? It may make him feel better but if anything, it
will make it even harder to recover money owed.

The OP stated that the contract provided for mediation. He can get a
legal opinion as to the validity of that clause. But if mediation is
specified in the contract, it's likely that it's valid and that's the
route this should go. If the OP is right, he has a decent chance of
prevailing. It's interesting that the contract provides for
mediation. I would not expect to find that in a contract with a real
shyster.

However, I agree with RBM and others. If the contractor is a shyster,
then whether you get an award through mediation or the courts,
collecting it is quite another matter. The real shysters have been
throught this dozens of times and make sure they are judgement proof.