Yes you need to protect yourself. I can tell you are alot like me. We are in the process of selling our home. We are going to be building a new one and moving to an apartment for 9 months. But in order to secure an apartment we had to put money down and SIGN a 9 month contract and we do not close on our house until the last week in May. So can I afford a mortgage and a rent payment in the event that something happens and the buyers back out on the sale of my home - No Way - so I insisted the apartment made an admendment to the contract stating we are not responsible for more than 2 months rent in the event that our home does not sell. They thought it was wierd but they did it and it makes me sleep at night. Go for it - you are a smart lady!!

I don't think anyone should finance something if it makes them nervous, but I'm a bit paranoid myself! I like your idea of a backout clause, although I wouldn't have any idea how to do it. See what your contractor thinks. Maybe he'll be willing to split up some of the job into parts, with separate contracts for each?

And of course, the nagging parent in me must ask if you're really sure you can't live with your current kitchen a little bit longer?

You are not likely to get any contractor or supplier to accept such a clause. If you can't afford the whole remodel as planned no matter what, then don't do it, or scale it down to where you can do it regardless. You're red flagging yourself as someone who really doesn't need to embark on this project right now. If I were a contractor on the job and you approached me about such a clause, I'd want all of my money up front, or I might walk away.

I doubt you would get a contractor to sign such a contract.
The only contracts that generally have clauses based upon finances or temporal clauses (finish early bonuses/finish late penalties, for example) are multistage commercial projects.

That said, the unemployment rate is not 30%, it hasn't reached 10% as a national average across the board, so unless you are in a high-risk industry for layoff you are overestimating the possibility.

However, I would not embark on such a project unless I was almost absolutely sure I could finish it.

There is one way that you could go, and that is a time and materials contract. These are Always more expensive in my experience, because you are paying an hourly rate so there is not a huge impetus to push it time wise. BUT that way you are only paying them for the time they work and their upcharge for materials they use to any given point in the project.

Because of the nature of a project I am doing at home, the contractor is on time and materials. (70/hr.) I have spent $1000 estimating, specifying and Talking About putting in a window. No window, just kinda sorta getting ready to Maybe put in a window.

Although we're paying cash for our master bath project, we made arrangements with our contractor in advance to do the job in phases so if our income changed, we'd be able to just stop the project until we could we felt financially able to restart it. He even priced it out in phases to help accomodate us. Of course it's been a fairly slow process, but you know what? It works for us and it's been working for our contractor because he does stuff for us inbetween other jobs. Normally, I'd agree that it may be hard to find someone to do the job with that clause in place, especially on a kitchen remodel, but times are tough and depending on where you are, for every one person that won't do it, there's probably 3-4 others that will.

I don't think anyone should finance something if it makes them nervous
I agree with that. This might not be what you want to hear but I'm not sure financing 100% of this kind of project is that great of an idea in these times.

Are you doing a heloc or putting this on a credit card or taking out a bank loan? It seems like the contractor wouldn't even be involved in the financing end of it, if the money was coming from some other kind of loan. If it's going to be a borrow-as-you go situation, that's very unfair to the contractor who will expect you to have the money or access to the money before he begins the job.

Are we talking a complete renovation for tens of thousands or a few changes for a much more modest cost? Why not save up for some if not all of the cost before going forward? Having the cash in hand before you start is good for peace of mind. (That's how I did my reno - saved up and paid cash, and it was a complete reno so it took several years of saving before we could start.)

Hi - I got a HELOC - the rates are ridiculously low. We are talking close to 40k for the reno at this point, and I don't think I would ever save that up.

I'm not super nervous - it's just in these economic times, I feel like everyone does about putting off everything but the absolutely necessary expenditures. I can afford the HELOC payment no problem, but 8 months out of work, and I may be sweating it. I have no basis for thinking I wouldn't be working, but I just wondered if anyone else had tried to build in some contingency plan.

We bought our house in 1993 - well before the bubble, so we are not even wading in the water, nevermind under water, and the HELOC won't even get us waste high - maybe knees?

So, I think - I'm doing my patriotic duty by borrowing and spending :-) And, I also think - if I do get into some sort of financial trouble, my house will sell a lot better with a new kitchen and open floor plan ;-)

Lynne