" Would it be unfair to demand them to return the $2750 deposit "

You can ask for anything you want but if they have gone dark before finishing and attempting to collect the balance of their money you may be peeing into the wind trying to get the deposit back.

Do you in fact have a written contract with this contractor?

@millworkman, in this particular case I know that the owner owns another brick and mortar business in town. So he's not impossible to track down.

@Embothrium, what I have is an email that I sent to him that itemized exactly what I expected for the price, and his reply that confirmed that I understood correctly. In NC, that is considered a valid contract.

@HU-291315178, I did verify that he's insured (fool me once, yada yada yada), but NC doesn't require anyone to be licensed unless they're taking contracts over $10,000 so there are only 3 or 4 licensed GCs in my area. And none of them are handling landscaping jobs this small. It took me awhile to find a GC to repair my roof (guy dropped a tree on it), and he commented that the $15,000 job was very small for him.

He did give me a list of references, but honestly, I didn't call them. He's a somewhat established person that talked the talk, and I needed to move forward for the sake of time. There's just not enough time in the day, ya know? :-/

But I guess what I'm really asking is if you all think that I'm being unfair.

I know that he paid 3 employees to work on the project for 5 days, and he rented the 12" chipper and stump grinder. He may have gotten a discount, but the rental company shows the chipper for $350 /day and the stump grinder for $265 /day (with a 50% discount if you rent for 5+ days). Assuming that they gave him the discount for renting two pieces of equipment, and assuming at least $100 /day per employee, that's at least $1,540 invested... probably closer to $2,500, though. I suspect that my 50% deposit was supposed to cover expenses, and the remaining 50% would have been gross profit.

I feel bad if he loses that much money for nothing, but at the same time, I don't want to lose that much money for nothing, either! It's not MY fault that his crew didn't know how to run the equipment, and I don't have money to burn.

I would not feel bad ~ you hired him and his employees to do a job… which was not done. I would ask for my deposit back. You are not being unfair, and I am pretty sure if the shoe was on the other foot he would be asking for his deposit back. Best of luck!

>I don't have money to burn<

All the more reason to have insisted on a more solid agreement beforehand. With the next step being taking what you do have to small claims court. This is why contracts are written in the first place, so that if an interaction becomes a problem for one of the involved parties they have something to fall back on.

You hired the wrong company/dude with friends. A tree service will have their own chipper and grinder, having to rent means this is not their line of work.

@Embothrium, NC recognizes oral agreements, so I insist on doing everything by email to create a paper trail. This is the email that I sent to him on Feb 22:

****

It's my understanding that the total cost will be $5,500 to:

1. shear off or grind out about 30 stumps;

2. take down those 2 small trees near the driveway;

3. mulching all of the wood that I showed you and Dan that's laying on the ground (throwing the mulch in piles around the perimeter of the yard that I will be responsible for spreading);

4. getting that one large limb that's in the middle of the other tree;

5. smooth out the front yard (scraping up all of the grass); and

6. disposing of the scraped-up grass (which you could really just push deep into the woods if you want) and Dan was going to take whatever wood is too big to mulch.

Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding anything!

****

He replied by email that #4 was not part of the agreement (a large limb from a cut tree that was stuck in the middle of another tree and dangerous), and I replied that it was OK and I would remove it myself.

I also paid the deposit by check, so there's a record of that, too.

You can see that the agreement doesn't explicitly state that the stumps would be ground to X depth, but there are several established articles saying that they would normally be ground 4-16" below ground level:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+low+should+I+expect+stumps+to+be+ground

And finally, I have the text chain with him where I told him that the stumps were nowhere near low enough (Mar 9), and his text confirming and saying that he would send someone else to finish the job. And his text stating that they would need a larger excavator.

If it does go to court then I think he would have a hard time arguing that the job is done to expectation.

@Nicole Jackson, thanks for the feedback. That's exactly how I feel, too, and I'm bracing myself for a fight. It's 2pm on Monday now and I still haven't heard from anyone, so at 5pm I'm going to text him.

I think where you may have made a mistake is #1 when you wrote "shear off or grind out about 30 stumps." Using 'AND" and listing an exact number of stumps would give you more leverage, I think. So sorry you are having such problems with him.

ETA: I agree that contractors can seem difficult and having hired one to build an above grade screened porch, I have now learned that contracts must state my expectations explicitly or I am out of luck.

Oh, jeez, what a mess, Jason. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Years ago I’d probably try to get my deposit back, but after watching lots of Judge Judy and People’s Court, I fear that money is gone. He will rightly say that work was done - even though it wasn’t what you thought it’d be. I agree with beesneeds post above. I would not pay him more, and I would not allow them to do further work. I’m sorry. I’ve had bad luck with many contractors over the last few years, too. It’s a headache.

" If it does go to court then I think he would have a hard time arguing that the job is done to expectation. "

The job may not have been done to expectations but then it hasn't been fully paid for either. While I appreciate your frustration at a poor job only half done, it is unrealistic to expect to get the deposit back. You have had a "crew" (more than just a single person) working onsite for 5 days and the use of a chipper, grinder and tractor. And although not the result expected or even finished, there is a cost to the landscape company for all of that they are entitled to reimbursement for. If it goes to court, that will certainly be taken into allowance, however the company owner may need to justify how much of the deposit that comprised and refund the balance, if any.

I read that it is not a landscape company, but a G.C. (e.g. build a shed, build a house, build a skyscraper).

To finish the work, hire an actual tree service company to remove stumps, limbs, and to chip&mulch. There should be many more of those companies than full-on G.C.'s, and they won't be sending their construction guys to fill in gaps with their house build on the other side of the county with your yardwork.

@3onthetree, you got it backwards: the company I hired is a landscape and tree service company, not a general contractor.

We have a TON of landscape / tree companies in my area, but 99% of them are fly-by-night and are one-man operations that are just renting equipment to do the job.

The real problem is getting anyone to even come out to give a quote! I called about 15 companies for a quote, but only 2 came out to give me a quote (I say "about 15" because I still have 10 business cards on my desk of people that I called, but I know that I threw several away after they didn't call back). Both gave the same price, but the first company is in the neighboring county and said he wouldn't be able to come until July!

The second company (the one I hired) is local and was able to start immediately, talking about how he has several crews and that one of them was just finishing a big job and could fit my smaller job in before starting another big one. Now I can see that that was a complete lie.

But anyway.

I texted him yesterday, he gave me a BS excuse about having to order a new blade for the stump grinder and that's why they haven't come back. Which is COMPLETE BS, because (1) he was renting the stump grinder, and (2) when we talked last week his was talking about using an excavator, not a stump grinder. Even if he wasn't obviously lying, there was no explanation on why he didn't tell me why he had disappeared for a week.

But fine, dude, I'll go along with it because I don't have time or money to start over. We'll see if it's done this time next week...

" but 99% of them are fly-by-night and are one-man operations that are just renting equipment to do the job. "

Sounds like this guy is in the 99%.....................

At that point I figured there's no chance of getting the deposit back, so I at least had to get $2700 worth of work out of them.

I did talk to the owner who SWORE that he could push all of the mulch into a pile for me. I couldn't imagine how, but I thought maybe he had a heavy duty blower vac or something :-/

Besides, at that point I didn't think they could possibly do any more damage, all that was left was stump grinding.

Dumb ol' me! Who ever thought that they would spread the rest of my mulch over my entire yard in an attempt to hide the stumps??

I'm guessing you don't like confrontation..."But fine, dude, I'll go along with it". On day #2, you weren't pleased. "What's a guy to do?" You should have a stop work order.

" but 99% of them are fly-by-night and are one-man operations that are just renting equipment to do the job. "

No, they've logically responded to the marketplace's demand for cheap landscapers. If they bid high enough to complete a job and make money, they won't get it and they have an inability to sell value instead of price.

Joseph Corlett, that is such an interesting comment. I think it is hard for me, and perhaps many people who are not much a part of such businesses, have no way to gauge what a particular such job is “ worth” , especially since many are not comparable— so many variables.
Even if one gets several quotes , who’s yo say what’s the right $$—as has been noted on the forums. except you might form an opinion on the person doing the work.

So it can boil down to whether you are somehow able to identify a specific person /company that multiple friends or such have hired before and maybe see the work, although again, it often might not be the same work.