On Mar 5, 9:08 am, Swingman wrote:
On 3/5/2012 8:19 AM, Sam Takoy wrote:

I would welcome any ideas on how to proceed. Or should we just
recognize that we made a $25k mistake and move on?

It's called between a rock and hard place.

IMO, your best bet at this point is to at least try to do what you can
to protect what equity you already have the cabinets as they exist, and
without spending any more money.

That is relatively easy to accomplish by immediately getting at least
three quotes from reputable remodelers in your area with the idea of
bringing the existing cabinet job up to a reasonable standard.

Once you have a basis for that cost, you will then have information you
need for either doing the work, or suing, or both.

If you do decide to sue, that information will be necessary, and to your
benefit, in any event.

Run, don't walk, to get this done, immediately.

You should take this advice, carve it in stone and go like hell.
Those who
recommend legal resolution as a good cure for this watch too much
courtroom
drama TV and too many of the "Judge XXXXXX" shows. Sueing is a long,
painful process that often winds up with no satisfactory resolution.
As a retained expert witness on a few cases, myself and the attorneys
did OK, but their clients did not.

Even if the client was wronged, even if they received a judgement,
even if
court ordered the contractor to be liable and pay, most of the time
the client
received NOTHING. Some contractor, somewhere is sitting at home
saying, "well, let 'em sue. You can't get blood out of a stone".
Even if you win, you may not get a thing. And if the judge finds that
you might have had a hand in the problem, or lead the contractor to
believe that in some way you were ever
happy with his work, he may split the damages between you.

Locally (San Antonio, TX), most amateur Perry Masons are stunned to
find that in such cases attorneys are NOT interested in small payout
cases. To take the case at no cost to the client, there must be a
large payout, and their cut will in most cases be anywhere from 35 to
50%, depending on the difficulty of the case. With that in mind, most
require $1000 retainer to "look into the case" and $2500 to persue it
and write a nasty letter or two. If it goes to court, there is
usually another $5000 for prep fees to cover documentation, a day in
court, research for precedent, etc.

Time is of the essence. The longer you wait, the longer this will
look like
buyer's remorse to a judge/jury/arbiter. Take a lot of pictures
before you do
anything, including loading the cabinets up with "stuff".

+ IMO, your best bet at this point is to at least try to do what you
can
+ to protect what equity you already have the cabinets as they exist,
and
+ without spending any more money.

+ That is relatively easy to accomplish by immediately getting at
least
+ three quotes from reputable remodelers in your area with the idea of
+ bringing the existing cabinet job up to a reasonable standard.

That is easily the best, most well thought out response reflecting
practical experience. If you want to crap shoot a few hundred
(thousand?)
on the court system and attorneys along with another 3 years of your
life, go
ahead and start the legal process. If you can get doors rehung,
cabinets
rehung, hinges mortised an adjusted correctly, handles replaced and
have
it all done for a reasonable cost, do it, and consider it a lesson
learned.

As a remodeling contractor, I have taken down cabinets and reworked
them many,
many times. Sometimes from bad installs, but more often than not
because we
were saving the clients money by using a basically good build that
just
needed a tune up. Find the guy that can do that to get your estimates
from to
start. Try callign a local cabinet shop that doesn't hang their
cabinets for
a resource. Most cabinet shops around here don't hang their own
products, but
have a good group of guys that do it for them.

Good luck. Sorry for your problems... I know how painful this can
be. And
from the contractor's side, one idiot makes us all look bad.

Robert