I wouldn't pay him in full until the job is finished. Have you drawn up a thorough punch list for him?

Right. This is your only leverage over him. Sounds like you have been a decent client and you have paid your bills on time. Now he can show a little gratitude and allow you to withhold an amount until such time as he is able to do the final accounting and complete what remains.

Yes we have have paid him often before he even finished the areas that he said. All of our payments were made within two day of a payment request. We paid him $40k for cabinet and granite installation only two weeks ago even though he was clearly not finished installing all of them.

This complete build has been paid with cash so there is no bank involved. My husband wanted to hold off paying him for the cabinets and he told us he would walk if he didn't get paid!

Unfortunately, there is not much leverage left. From the total of $35k left we have so many allowances taken out ($12k alone just for our appliances that we bought on our own) along with other things he removed from our design we signed off on that we feel we only owe him $1.300.

There were supposed to be two brick chimneys as noted on the design. One of them would have been 40 feet tall. He asked if we wanted the fireboxes inside or outside the home and he was pretty insistent that they would look better inside as we were having built-in cabinets on both sides of them. What he neglected to tell us was that we would lose our exterior chimineys by building the boxes inside instead of out. Inititally I was disappointed for losing my chimneys. However, I am fine with it now, but I would think they would have cost a pretty penny to build, but we are only asking for $5k back on them, shutters, louvers, a built in cubby in laundry room, and other things on the design we signed off on that were not given to us. We expect that he will come back that he wants a lot more than we say we owe... possibly 10K or more. We are prepared to dicker but do not want to pay him everything until he finishes the majority of the work.

No walkthru has been scheduled as of yet. And we still need to find out how he handles the deed. I have to call the county tomorrow and find out what is done in this state.

You feel he is owed only $1300 more but indicated that he will feel he's due more even though there is a substantial amount of incomplete work - and he's pulled his main crew? I hope some of the experienced pros will comment but it sounds as if he may need money coming in from his next build so he can afford to finish yours but I sure hope not.

The $40k for cabinets, was that labor only? Or for the cabinets too? I ask because we have paid about 75% of our cabinet costs (about 30k) and they are still sitting in a warehouse (we're at drywall stage). So, if he waited until the end to accept payment that's pretty good.

The 40K was for installation of the cabinets and granite. He has his own cabinetry shop and he made the cabinets in our home and all the wood trim. When we signed our contract with him we agreed on a total to build this home that included all the cabinets in our home on the plan. We paid extra for cabinets that were not on the plan we asked to have installed.

SInce the beginning of our build we have been paying him all along for every price point he has requested. The residual amount is a PERCENTAGE of the total remaining home cost which was $35k. Because we need to deduct all the allowances we paid out of our pocket we don't owe as much. We paid for all our kitchen appliances since my husband is an employee and got a discount. That was a $12k allowance. We also paid out of our pocket for lighting, cabinet knobs, and door hardware. So that brought the total down more.

We have already paid him extra for any of our overages on other allowances and now he has to settle up with us on what he owes us for the allowances we paid for. We told him what we thought we should owe him, We also deducted a number of items that he didn't give us that were on the original design. So no telling what he will decide he will give us back for some of these things. And he may disagree with some of the compensation we are asking him to give us back... (example we suspect our granite was below our allowance of $65 per square foot because he never gave us a change order as he did with other areas we went over, but he also hasn't given us money back on it) We checked out all three of our granites and they are lower grade granites that typically sell locally for $45 or less. But then again we don't know his cost for these things... thus we both need to settle on the residual amount owed

There is too much work left for him to finish to do a final pay off. If you do give him the final amount, it will very difficult (and no leverage) to get him to complete the work. I would not pay until it was more finished.

I neglected to add that this builder warranties our home for 3 years. The home is beautiful and well built. But he has always asked for price points on the home before they were completed and he has continued working.

We were over at the house yesterday. House has been cleaned up and all landscaping is completed. The painters have finished some major work but the house will still need some minor touchups through out from what we could see. An electrician was there finishing up his work and a glass guy was there finishing up the shower door and mirrors over sinks. Our builder stopped in while we were there and gave us his version of what we owed him for the build. He wanted it by the end of yesterday. Of course he wanted a lot more back from the residual than we had asked for. He didn't budge on even giving us credit for the granite. (nor do we know exactly how much he paid, but we know he made extra back on it for what it must have cost him). My husband caved and said he would pay it.

He said they would be having a full crew back tomorrow to finish up cabinets and will install our towel and toilet hardware. I got an email this am that they were all over there now.

When were over at the shop yesterday to pay the residual and saw all the cabinet shelves and doors that were to be installed and also the shoe mouldings ready to go. Other than having some paint touch ups and a couple of outlests that need to be complete we will be finished.

My husband had contacted a lawyer several weeks ago and he got back and said they could send the builder a letter. But that if the builder walked out on the job there was nothing they could do!

So we settled up last night in spite of having our work all completed and have to rely on the builder that he will do as he promised. It sucks that they have the upper hand. We paid too much money into the build and my husband said he just wants to pay and get it over with now.

Builder's wife said that they will do a walkthru with us the end of next week 17th. We could start moving some things in to the garage and storage areas before that, however. The builder likes to do his own walk-thru without us first He will most likely do his on Monday or Tuesday. She surmised that everything will be done by next Friday... except to have another cleaning person in there that day. After we move in and are there living a couple of weeks and we find anything amiss then they schedule the plumber or electrician or whoever to come back and fix anything not working properly.

I guess we just have to trust him.