Subcontractor submitted a fake contract with a forged signature!

[Bakari]

When we bought our new house the seller refused to do the (mandatory) sewer lateral, and we gave in and agreed to do it.


The city has a program where they will pay half the cost to qualified owners.
We are on a busy 4 lane street, and the city main is all the way across the street, so bids were higher than typical.


We got 3 bids, went with the lowest one.
The work seems to have been good, passed inspections, no problems.


But then when we applied for the city's rebate program, our application was rejected because the information on our application didn't match their records.
It turned out the contractor didn't actually pull the permit.  They hired a sub-contractor, who used a completely different (and several thousand dollar lower) bid/contract to apply for a permit (presumably because the cost of the permit is based on the price of the work) - with my signature forged(!!), as though I had actually just hired the subcontractor directly.


If not for the city rebate application being rejected, I would have never even known that there was a subcontractor involved in any way!


Does any one have any idea what my options might be?


I kind of resent having paid the original plumber at all - if the sub contractor pulled the permit and (possibly?) did all of the work, I could have just hired them directly, and saved a couple thousand dollars.  Is there any law against a contractor hiring a sub and having that sub do 100% of the work?

[GrowingTheGreen]

This is an absolutely marvelous situation for small claims court. God. Amazing. I'm jealous.

Anyways. Start out by sending your contractor a demand letter. Summarize the case and demand a refund of the difference in amounts. At the end of the letter, state that if an agreement is not reached, you will file a claim against him. Also mention that if the issue isn't resolved, you'll be contacting your states registrar of contractors. Send it certified mail and keep a copy. You may need it later.

If he forged your signature, call the police and get a report. The cops won't do shit, but you can use the police report as evidence of this thing goes to court.

if they don't refund you money, file a small claims suit. God I love this. Super easy. Just google it for your county. At this point he'll either settle or it'll go to court. Most civil suits are settled.

Honestly, if he's doing this to others, this is class action territory. Maybe worth mentioning in your letter. Local news can also be a useful tool.

Make that f-er pay.

[SwordGuy]

Against the law to hire a sub?  No.   Also is fully allowable unless your contract with them says otherwise.

Forging a contract with your signature on it is, however, illegal.

Big time.

[fishnfool]

Everything 'Growing the Green' said x's 2!

I went through a similar ordeal when we had a new septic system installed.

Document everything,  police report would be very helpful. Original contractor is who you hired, he'll have to go after the sub.

 Between the two of them they would be smart to pay you what the rebate would have been to keep this out of court and have a bad mark on them by the state contractor license board who will also fine them!

[Bakari]

Against the law to hire a sub?  No.   Also is fully allowable unless your contract with them says otherwise.

Generally, I know, its standard practice to subcontract parts of a job. For a really big job the main contractor might not even do any physical labor and have a set of different subcontractors.  But even then, they are doing the work of management, and they do the paperwork and pull permits themselves.
In this case the subcontractor submitted a contract to the city themselves, which outlined all of the work to e done.  In other words, at least according to the paperwork they submitted, the original contract did NONE of the work, not even filing papers - they simply hired someone else who was willing to do the work for less.
That doesn't seem like it should be legal (but maybe it is?)

Forging a contract with your signature on it is, however, illegal.

Big time.

Only problem is I have no way to know whether it was the contractor or the subcontractor who forged the signature! Nor do I see any clear way to find out

Everything 'Growing the Green' said x's 2!

I went through a similar ordeal when we had a new septic system installed.

Document everything,  police report would be very helpful. Original contractor is who you hired, he'll have to go after the sub.

 Between the two of them they would be smart to pay you what the rebate would have been to keep this out of court and have a bad mark on them by the state contractor license board who will also fine them!

I want the difference between what I paid and what the bid they submitted to the city was! That's even more than the difference in rebate amount.

[Fishindude]

In my mind, all you are entitled to is the rebate amount.
I'd demand that the guy you hired cut you a check for this amount ASAP, or the law will be getting involved.
 

[I'm a red panda]

In my mind, all you are entitled to is the rebate amount.
I'd demand that the guy you hired cut you a check for this amount ASAP, or the law will be getting involved.

It seems to me that there should be recourse for the forgery as well!

[Fishindude]

It seems to me that there should be recourse for the forgery as well!

This is a criminal matter aside from the basic scope of work and what was promised.
Pursue that if you want, but I'm guessing you would end up with more in legal expenses and hassle than you would recover?