(I have removed "misc.legal.moderated" from the Newsgroups
line of this followup to your posting. First of all, your
News server is broken and passed your article along to other
News servers rather than submitting it to the moderators of
misc.legal.moderated as it should have done. Second, it is
usually a bad idea to cross-post conversational articles to
both moderated and unmoderated newsgroups.)

(Kelly E Jones) writes:
He's claiming now that he'll be done by the 30th, but as I said, we
know he's a liar, so I don't put much stock in that. The question is,
what recourse do we have when the 30th comes and goes and the job is
not done? The contract specifies no specific remedies.

You should have demanded that specific remedies for late
completion be spelled out in the contract. Your failure to
do so means that you did not place any specific value on
timely completion at the time the contract was signed, which
means that you are unlikely to be able to win any substantial
compensation for the delays.

It also
mandates arbitration as the mechanism for resolving disputes.

You should not have signed a contract mandating arbitration.

Do we lock him out on the 30th, hire a lawyer, and see what we can get
through arbitration? My sense is that the arbitrator (specified by
the contractor) will probably side with the contractor, since that's
where their business comes from.

You should not have signed a contract specifying that one
side would be allowed to select the arbitrator unilaterally.
Usually, the arbitrator must be agreed to by both sides.

What can we reasonably ask for as a remedy?
How do I go about this?

Tell the contractor you do not believe that the work will be
done by August 30 and demand a written agreement spelling out
the compensation he will make to you based on how late the
work is finished. Tell him that absent such a written
agreement, you will kick him out of the house, pay for the
work done by him to date, and hire another contractor to
finish.

You are, in essence, demanding that he renegotiate the
contract with you based on the fact that he will be in breach
of contract if the work is not finished by August 30.

Of course, you cannot threaten to kick him out and have
someone else finish the work unless you mean it. And such an
act will undoubtedly greatly inconvenience you, since you'll
have to find another contractor willing to pick up a job in
the middle and finish it. You will need to evaluate whether
it's worth it to experience that inconvenience to (a) get a
better contractor to finish the work, perhaps faster than your
current one would, and (b) take a stand on principle and deny
your current contractor the right to continue to profiting
from his own misconduct.

What can I expect from arbitration, if that's the way the go?

It's a crap-shoot, really. And remember that once you enter
into arbitration, you've totally screwed your relationship
with the contractor; do you really want him to continue
working on your house under those conditions?