We have problems Houston – solar people. Since signing the contract to get solar on our roof we have had no action. All of the milestones on our contract have been missed and they are in default of contract.
The next question is what to do about it. The first impulse is to request our deposit back, cancel the contract, and hire someone else. Now let’s stand back and examine that.
1. Can we get out of the contract?
2. Can we get our earnest money back?
3. What about claims from our dealer that they’ve already done a lot of work for us? (not that we’ve seen any effort besides dodging us on the phone)
We’ve heard a lot of excuses about work done, but needing to get a permit, needing to schedule it in, etc., etc. The contract says they’ve reached their limit. Now they want to make more promises to do the work. Are they really ready to do the work? Can they perform? Do we want them to?
They claim to have made a plan and had it approved by the County. Is that true? How can we tell? We haven’t seen the plans, though we are supposed to approve them before they go to permit. Did they get it approved by the County or were they lazy and got it approved by our post-office city. If it’s not the County they paid too much money to the wrong people.
To us, it appears that they’ve not remained in contact with us, not done the work in good time, not shown that they are reliable. We want out.
The question remains, can we do it? What about our report to Angie’s List? How far should we go in listing our woes? We’re still chewing on it, but we are not happy.
Marilynne
That is terrible! I think you should take the hardball position right away. If there is a schedule and they haven’t met any of the deadlines… yowza but I’d be screaming my head off.
Sorry you have to deal with this, and I hope it gets resolved soon.
Love, Cindy
.-= Cinders´s last blog ..Culinary experiment… creme brulee =-.
comment by Cinders — August 16, 2009 @ 4:43 pm
I’m so sorry! My advice, put on your hard-helmet and start investigating the contractors and everything they “said” they have done. Best of Luck!
comment by Stargirl — August 17, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
We’re pretty close to having done that. We have a long list of broken promises and missed deadlines.
comment by Marilyyne — August 17, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
That’s terrible! You can check with the county to see if a permit has been filed with them. I think it’s the assessor’s office here that keeps track of that. If you figure out who does the permits, you can ask them.
I’d ask them for your money back, citing breach of contract. If they won’t give it to you, report them to the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General’s office, providing as unbiased of an account of the facts as you can. That’s what got me most of my money back dealing with HughesNet…
You could keep giving them chances, but it sounds like you’ve already given them quite a few…
comment by Woosi — August 24, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
In looking for your county info, I found this: http://energycenter.org/.
If you do decide to keep going with them, you should insist that they provide you copies of everything they’ve supposedly done to this point, and that would include applications to the county…
comment by Woosi — August 24, 2009 @ 8:50 pm