Assistance with legal questions about painting and contracts

Questioner

This spring, a complete renovation fleece wallpaper and painting job for inside and outside agreed with a painter. According to the contract, all the work would be completed by the end of April. However, by the end of August, the inside is not yet finished and the outside still needs to be painted. So far, 50% paid (with the agreement that the inside was not yet finished, but would be completed with the outside) and 25% down payment to buy paint etc. for the outside. After a final message from the painter in mid-August that he was ill, the painter can no longer be reached: no responses to phone calls and messages. What to do?

Lawyer

You must give the painter written notice of default to finish the job, failing which you will have it done elsewhere at his expense. The fact that the job will be finished at the end of April is also a reason for you to suspend payment. You can suspend the remaining payment until the agreed work has been done. If you cannot reach an agreement, please contact me directly and without obligation.

Lawyer

From the painter's attitude you may conclude that he does not intend to do the work for you. In principle he is also in default because a fixed end date has been mentioned for delivery of the work. For those reasons a very short term could be mentioned or not at all, so that you can also cancel and reclaim part of the deposit plus the materials in addition to the above-mentioned solution.

Questioner

Is this a good letter? ----- Dear XXXX, To our regret, we have had to conclude that despite various commitments on your part, you are not complying with the contractual agreements made. You have indicated through various contacts with us, both by telephone, WhatsApp messages and in person, that the work will be completed soon (before the Construction Holidays): finishing the interior painting (bathroom ceiling, ground floor toilet, front door, utility room door and garage/garden door) and the complete exterior painting, for which you received a deposit of €X.XXX on XX-XX-2017. We would like to point out to you that we entered into an agreement with you on XX-XX-2017 for the complete interior and exterior painting of our home and you are obliged to adhere to this contractually established agreement with a deadline of XX-XX-2017. We do not have a personal but a strictly business contract with you and we also want to approach this only in a businesslike manner. Up until now we have been lenient with your performance, but it has now become a fact that you are not fulfilling both contractual agreements and verbal agreements. In the meantime, you are also no longer answering your phone and WhatsApp messages, which leads us to conclude that you will no longer fulfill your contractual obligations. We hereby officially declare you in default. We offer you one more opportunity to complete the work yourself: we want to give you until 16 September 2017 to complete the painting work in accordance with the contract. If not, we will consider the contract terminated due to breach of contract. Because it is a breach of contract on your part at that point, we demand compensation. If the agreements are not met in time, we will have the remaining work officially appraised by an independent, recognised painter. The additional costs that the completion of the work by another party entails will be deposited with you before the work commences. In concrete terms, this means that if the costs of completing the painting work are higher than the €X,XXX that you must still receive from us according to our contract, these will be at your expense. This only happens if you do not meet your contractual obligations before 16 September 2017. The choice is therefore yours. Furthermore, if you cannot agree with the above, we require a written response from you before 9 September 2017. If you do not receive a written response, this means that you agree with the above. You will receive this letter by registered mail. Kind regards,

Lawyer

Yes, the letter is clear and the painter knows where he stands. If this does not lead to the desired result, please contact me for further legal action.