“There is nothing in our contract about photos.” You answered your own question.

Youre not understanding the role of a GC. They are the executive master planners and schedulers and babysitters. MOST do not ever work directly on a house. Expecting your GC to be a toolbelt on the jobsite is an completely incorrect expectation.

Is your old G.C. using photos of your home? Promoting his business with photos of a home your old G.C. didn't complete could be fraud. You could write a letter saying if he uses your home to promote his business you will report it to the proper authorities as fraud, but that threat doesn't have a lot of teeth.

@User sigh...here we go again with you not reading my post and telling me what I think. What is the role of a GC, do tell. Causing so many delays that the homeowners have to fire them and get their own subs? We became the executive master planners. The schedulers. The babysitters. I know EXACTLY the role of a GC, and this guy wasn't it. When the GC tells you he will be working on X, Y, and Z and he does none of those and lets your house sit for months, with nothing but excuses and lies, who has the completely incorrect expectation? If that's YOUR expectation of a GC, my sincere apologies about your situation. Please, let's not get in an argument about eggplant parmesan again.

@bry911 Now that our house is finished (with subs we hired ourselves) one of those subs told us that the old GC may have used photos of our completed house to bid other jobs. If the GC had taken exterior pics of our foundation and the framing (which is all he did) before the completion of the house and said, "I poured the foundation and framed this house" and showed pics of that to people, fine. But to show pics of a completed house where he had nothing to do with anything else that contributed to the house being built, and claim to be the GC for that house, I think is disingenuous.

I would not recommend that GC to anyone and I don't want him showing pics of my house as if he did a great job for us or had any involvement in its completion. I guess a letter could be sent, but like you said, maybe not much can be done?

If I may suggest, leave a couple of brief and honest reviews of your contractor in the appropriate places and then move on with your life. Don't allow a contractor who caused you frustration to continue frustrating you, make the information available to others so that they can learn the risks of hiring this contractor and then put the entire thing behind you.

^^ I like this!

In my state you can complain to the Atty. General about a fraudulent business but the forms require you to state how you were financially damaged by their activities. I don't see how you would be out any money if he used photos of your house. You'd probably have to sue him or something to get him to not use photos.

Does he even have photos of the interior? I'm guessing not.

Yeah, move on. It's hard but you'll feel better.

As others have posted there really is nothing you can do that would prevent anyone from using photos of the exterior of your home in this situation since you don't even know if he is doing so.

If he were using the photos on the internet so it is being disseminated and you actually knew of the deception it would be different. There was a husband of a Real Housewive of NJ who *claims* to have some kind of construction/flipping business who used a random photo of a house and claimed that the "after" was his work - he had a before and after picture of the exterior remodel. He was exposed and he did take down the pictures but no legal action because realistically - what are the damages to the owner of the home. Perhaps someone who used services could claim that they "relied" on a picture to their detriment but they would still have to prove damages.

If you did discover he was actually using a photo of your home you could have a friend who is an attorney send a Cease & Desist letter asking him to stop this. I say a friend because it really isn't worth it to spend money for it and this is the kind of favor I have done for close friends and family. Obviously you wouldn't ask a random acquaintance to perform services for free though. Often a C&D on letterhead is enough to get rational people to stop doing whatever they are doing.