aidan - "Don't ever pay for anything until recieved. 25% down payment? Run! Any legit contractor has credit." Are you on drugs? It is not the contractor's responsibility to finance YOUR project. It also shows a commitment on the part of the client. Check your state contractor law. Every state allows a specific percentage of the total project amount to be collected as a deposit or down payment on a job. My clients can be excited, earnest, singing my praises, and friending me on Facebook - they don't get put on the schedule till I get a deposit. Worried that the contractor you selected will take the money and run? Then you probably did a lousy job of screening the contractor and/or picked the lowest price. That's the risk you take. Hokies - that really, really sucks. Your remedy is to pursue the contractor in court and report him to the state contractors board. If he's this big a scrub their sanctions probably won't mean a lot to him and he'll close his doors and pop up with a new name next month, but maybe you're setting a track record for the next homeowner to see. I really hope you're successful in getting your money back. Mopes like this guy are what give our industry a bad name (and make people think ridiculous things like they shouldn't pay a deposit)

The above is not correct. Bonding is not the same as insurance. You definitely want to make sure the contractor has insurance in place, especially Worker's Comp which covers injury to his employees. There are two types of bonds that you may be referring to. The first is a statutory contrator license bond which is required by most states. This gives you some security should the contractor disappear or fail to pay his sub-contractors. The amount of the bond is usually relatively small ($10,000?) and is subject to claims from anyone else he may have defrauded - not really much protection. The second type of bond is called a payment and performance bond. It is something that the contractor purchases (and you pay for - usually 2-5% of the value of the work) which covers you if he doesn't pay his sub-contractors, disappears, goes bankrupt, etc. This type of bond is usually taken in commercial projects but isn't common in residential because many contractors can't procure them or the homeowner doesn't want to pay extra for them. This is because the bonding companies are very strict about who they issue them to and often require the contractor to put up full collateral for the amount fo the bond. Hope this helps.

Update: The carpenter came this morning and took down the cabinets. To his and my surprise, the glued ones came down very easily - no damage to the cabinets, and very little to the wall. (I almost didn't insist on replacing the cabinets because I was terrified the wall would collapse!) He and I had a cordial discussion about reordering the cabinets. He agreed to price them out and send me the quote so I could buy them where I wanted. He seemed grateful I wasn't going to insist he buy them someplace more expensive. (The result of that pricing exercise is now in another thread addressed to Kompy & LiveWireOak. :-)) Later the foreman came by, and I apologized to him for yelling at him last week. He was very gracious about it, and I think it helped clear the air a bit, at least in my head (and hopefully in his). I still have concerns about using the same carpenter to rehang the cabinets, but I don't have to deal with those *this* week. Also confirmed that the invoice was a computer mistake. Happens all the time. So far, so good - knock on wood!

The question is why a home inspector would be licensed by the board that issues licenses to contractors since inspectors don't build anything. And even if they were licensed by the same board why would an inspector be responsible for a defect that would only show up with extended use? I think the answer is likely to be that the home inspector happened to also be a licensed contractor and the board felt the defect was something that should have been found in the short time an inspector is on a site. Not that it matters; I was just curious why a home inspector would have such a high level of liability. In my state a seller would be held responsible if it could be shown that the defect had been known at the time of sale, not an inspector. As for ethics violations, I have not found trade groups or licensing boards to consider poor performance to be an ethics violation; that usually involves misrepresentations, cheating and stealing or other violations of their rules of conduct and the punishment would be a fine or suspension rather than compensation to the owner - that would require a court order. However, punitive action by a board of any kind might be helpful to you in court.