Did you have any sort of written agreement with this character? You didn't ask about this but...I don't know the exact laws in your state regarding late payment penalties but in Texas, where there is no agreement regarding interest on unpaid bills, the maximum rate that can be charged is 6% per year and that can only begin to be applied 30 days after the debt becomes due. So, even if you did actually owe him the amount he is claiming (which I doubt), absent a written agreement to a higher interest rate, I'd suspect that if he tries to assess a 15% late payment penalty for every day that an alleged bill goes unpaid, he would be in violation of your state's usury laws. Next, each state has very specific laws regarding mechanic's liens and the time limits in which they MUST be filed. You should probably do a little research or talk to a lawyer in your state regarding mechanic's lien laws. Once the time limit for filing a lien (which can be as short as 30 days) has passed, check your county records to see if a lien has been filed against your property. If not, you can rest easy about that. If he has filed a lien, then you'll need the attorney to help you deal with him. Assuming everything you've said is true, my suspicion is that this guy won't really file a lien. He sounds like the kind of shoddy workman who deliberately low-balls bids and then, once he has the job, attempts to hijack more money from his customers. Chances are, if you start checking, you'll find he has a long history of doing the same thing to other customers. The last thing he wants is an actual court battle where you could allege "fraud in the inducement" regarding the contract and start delving into his prior business practices to show that he has made a pattern and practice of doing the same sorts of things to others. Also, you'll want to keep watch on your credit reports so that if he files anything with a credit bureau, you can dispute it so it doesn't negatively affect your credit score. And BTW, once the deadline for him filing a lien against your property has passed, do report him to the BBB. Unless you complain so that other homebuilders have at least some chance of finding out about what he did to you, he'll be free to keep on screwing other people around. Good luck.

Adobe is a corporation, not a product or a file format. PDF, which you states in the subject correctly, means "Portable Document Format" - it is the file format created by Adobe's Acrobat software (and many other programs since Adobe publishes the PDF specification). That file format is actually a meta format of sorts and can contain all sorts of information in it, including illustration file formats, text as well as bitmap graphics in various image formats. You can upload any file to a web host or file hosting service. Not all file types will display in someone's browser and certainly not all files will display inline on one of these forum messages. If you want to just include a text link to the file you can insert a standard HTML anchor tag pointing to the hosted file or you can use the "Optional Link URL" feature included at the bottom of the posting/edit box. If you would like an image to appear inside your post then you should send up a file in a format that will display properly in the majority of people's web browsers and can be used with the HTML "img" tag. Definitely not a TIFF. A JPEG or PNG is recommended. Depending on what software you're using to view or edit PDF files on your computer you may be able to Save or Export the images you want out of the file. Otherwise one very easy way is to do a screen or window capture while viewing the file. The resulting image can then be cropped if needed (to remove any desktop/window graphics that don't belong in the original photo). If this is all Greek to you, you might be better off just uploading the PDF as first mentioned and including its URL in the "Optional Link URL" below. As long as someone has a PDF plugin or viewer they'll be able to view it. Then maybe someone will be nice enough to strip out the pictures you want out of the file. If I see this thread again and you've uploaded the file I can do it if you'd like. Bruno

DD50: That sounds ideal, but we don't have a Home Goods store in the small ocean side town that I live in. Unfortunately we have already lost 4 businesses in this small town, and a furniture store bearing a sign, asking for a bail-out, believe it or not! We DO have an antique store that is closing and right now it is 40% off. The woman wants out, and I did find two pieces of furniture that would work for my situation, but her prices are still too high. I will check again with her in a week to see if I can get her to drop lower. I have tried Freecycle and Craigslist and am active with both, and the file cabinet is a bit rusty that I don't think anyone would want it. Lena: You are most certainly correct. My words exactly!! We are headed for Depression. Closet space is ample, 'busy' but not crowded, but not an option for the file cabinet as I already have a small chest in there holding extra linens, one box of photo albums, etc.

I think a call to the PB who filed the lien is in order. I learned the hard way about liens. Hired concrete guy to do a patio. I did not know that if he did not pay the concrete truck company they could file a lien. We paid our contractor in full, he took the money and paid the concrete company. He had an account with then so they applied MY money to the contractors prior jobs that were outstanding. Contractor went awol and so we went after his bond. They did pay off the lien for us but did not pay to the over $7,000 in damages the contractor did to our property while doing the job- concrete splattered on house and yard, don't ask! So when we hired the PB, Premier, we got the whole lien/sub issue figured out. I even got lien releases at end of job even though they told me all was paid. I made sure I knew which jobs were sub and which were not. I literally asked the electrician if he was a Premier employee that day or a sub, then verified with PB. I did not let anyone enter property without getting all this stuff figured out. Unfortunatly, sometimes we have to learn the hard way. Again, sounds like a call in required here.