I don't know about Epic, but I have a story about FU money.
We purchased a high end view lot from our builder to build our high end retirement house (Not very Mustachian, but we love it!!). The house is in a reasonably small town and we are fairly well connected. Our builder acquired this lot by partnering with a local attorney with the understanding that the builder would build both houses at the same time to save on cost, etc. Our builder is a well known old school reputable builder within the community. The two of them went into this partnership for the land only with a back of a napkin agreement, maybe slightly more, but not enough. The agreement was pretty fair in theory. Each of them would own a lot. Builder would sell his lot, attorney would use builder to build his dream retirement house. Site development, view easements, sharing of community cost, etc. I am sure our builder did this type of thing with others with no problem. If both parties are working together you can save a lot of money on the various components.
This attorney put together a standard purchase agreement between the builder and my wife and I. We agreed to split his attorney fee with the builder(Attorney is not part of the lot sale transaction). Think of a standard form with parcel numbers and a purchase price. He sent a bill for $10k. Builder was pissed, I was shocked. After asking the attorney how many hours did he spend and what was his billing rate (a little late, but they were going to be our neighbors) he informed me that it was based on value not time. I said this is a standard form. We have used this form in the past. Other attorneys charge $300. I told him that I did not think that this was fair, he said send him a check for what I thought was fair. I sent him a check for $1k for my half. I like to be more than fair in most transactions. Up until this period, there was no mention that the attorney had this site development agreement with the builder that was supposed to carry over to our lot.
The attorney reached out on a number of things about splitting costs for something and my reply back to him was that as long as it was fair, that I would be happy to partner up to save money. He never liked that answer. I did not understand why a person would get so frustrated or upset about fairly splitting costs where we can each save money.
About this time I am informed that there is a site development agreement that was not mentioned by the attorney(who drafted the lot purchase or the builder). The builder, kept saying that the attorney wants to jointly develop the property. This made sense to me with sewer lines, lot prep, etc. I did not realize that there was a formal back of the napkin site development agreement. The attorney never cashed my check, which I understand now why.
The attorney made the builder's life miserable as everything financial had to go his way. It started off with demanding the builder to build the house super cheap or he would not give us our view easements. The view easements were already laid out on the napkin that the builder and attorney put together when they decided to partner on the land. He was required to give us the easements. This delayed us, caused us to incur more legal fees than we should have, etc.
Throughout the build there were a number of items in the early stage, where we were willing to give more than we should with the understanding that we would be living next door to this person for many years. The asks kept on getting bigger and more unfair as the project would go. The attorney could look you in the eye and explain to you with a huge smile on his face how this is the way it was meant to be, etc.
When another one of these $3k differences popped up, I said I was not going to pay it. My builder could see my point, but the attorney was holding up something else, and my builder was going to split the cost with us. I said I wasn't going to pay it. My builder was going to eat the cost. I did not like that as well, as the builder and his subcontractors had been abused by this guy during the entire build.
In front of the attorney's wife. I told our builder that I was not going to pay this and that I would spend up to $100k to take the attorney to court for the previous expenses, get him disbarred, and incur other costs that that we did not need to spend in our construction that they would be obligated to pay half.
The asks stopped occurring. The wife was very concerned about their reputation, which made sense since they screwed over a ton of subcontractors who were already talking about it throughout the town. We finished the build. They are a lovely couple, when money is not involved.
The attorney's house was completed over a year ago. I am not sure if the builder has received final payment.
I am a big believer in fair. I always would prefer to pay more than my fair share. Having FU money, allowed me to say that I am willing to spend a ton of money to make you pay a ton of money if you continue to do things that are not fair.
