Posted on 08/11/2016 4:34:14 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
....This lien, which opens the way for a forced sale of Doral unless it’s paid off, was filed Aug. 9 by Straticon LLC, the Martin County-based construction firm in charge of part of the $255 million renovation of the famed country club.
According to the paperwork, Starticon says it’s still owed $236,472 for its work on the three-year project, which ended in June.
...Trump Endeavor managed to stave off an attempt by a mom-and-pop paint supplier, The Paint Spot, to force the sale of the club over the final payment of $34,000 for $200,000 worth of paint.
...Alan Garten, Trump’s business attorney, pointed out that 18 of the 23 liens filed against the Doral owner have been satisfied.
“Payments have been made,” Garten said. “On a project of this magnitude with hundreds of contractors, 20 liens isn’t a big deal. It’s a complicated project, and what’s important is the fact things are getting paid.”
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
That sums it up nicely!
Bingo.
I’m a Florida lawyer and I’ll tell you this is no big deal. If they are owed money then they will get paid. If not then they won’t. It’s just a commercial dispute. Happens all the time. Usually because the general contractor
went bust and did not pay the subs.
Bingo. But don't expect your average idiot left-leaning Democrat or low information Democrats to understand how things work on a JOBsite.
Trump is not in charge of paying these sub-contractors. The General Contractor of the job is. There may be many reasons why these 20 or so subs haven't been paid. . . They may be even sub-contractors of other sub-contractors who have already been paid who failed to pay THEIR sub-contractors or suppliers. I really suspect that in the case of the paint supplier because the General Contractor would not contract for purchase of paint, but his painting sub-contractor would. Ergo, the painting contractor probably was paid, but did not complete payment for the paint he purchased for the job. The contractor's lien is then legally allowed to be placed on the entire job to force the General Contractor to get the supplier paid, either by pressuring the painting contractor to pay-up, or paying himself, in other words the GC may windup paying twice for the same paint!
There is literally no way for the General Contractor to account for sub-contractors paying all of their suppliers in all cases, or for all of their workers, unless the GC pays all bills. On a large job, that is much too unweildly. I am betting these 20 or so liens are all of this nature and typical of any large project.
Hillary Clinton “misplaced” $6,000,000,000 Dollars of Taxpayer Funds while running the State Department.
Are there any Subcontractors on Trump Projects owed $6,000,000,000?
Any information on how much the Contractors that are complaining have already been paid before they decided to put a Lien on the Property?
As always, just asking.
I am a contractor. I own a contracting business. We are pipefitters who do sprinkler systems and underground gas lines.
I MUST put a lien on a property in order to secure a bank loan to buy materials. Not all jobs mind you, say if the job calls for under $40k in materials, we will cover the materials (depending on the client, and if we have done business with them before).
But say for a job requiring $200k + in materials our bankers will NOT loan us the money for the materials unless we file a lien at the start of the job.
It is standard operating practice here in Illinois, I don’t know about other states, but the states around me (WI, IL and Iowa) are pretty much the same.
A lien is your collateral in case the project goes belly up (bankrupt) during contruction and it prevents the owner from selling the property during construction (you cannot change title if you have lien against you).
Also, payment of liens are on a first come first serve basis, so if the project does go belly up, and there is a bankruptcy dispersment, you want your lien at the top of that heap when the judge looks dispersements.
This is non-sense journalism.
I have put liens on highways and municipal buildings (they don’t mean squat in terms of a bankruptcy, like if Illinois goes bankrupt), but they give me recourse to get paid in a timely fashion (well, they used to, not any more and we don’t do state projects anymore).
What the lien does in those instances is allows me to get interest against the assets that I have provided. Say the state is two years late in paying me for materials, I can get a judge to order the state to pay me for that interest and penalties that we incurred (and this has happened.
Garbage reporting meant to make Trump look bad. But we all know that.
I have no clue how far out these bills are, but it’s not unusual to wait 3 to 6 months for payment from corporations - even on 10day2% terms. And the AP person is always looking for an atta-boy from their supervisor so they will try to chisel the bill down (which is why some may pad the bill 10% - so they can be ‘talked into’ giving a “10% discount”). At least, that’s been my experience.
Hell, 20 years ago, we had our building built by one of the most reputable contractors in the area. Little did we know he had developed an addiction to cocaine just before accepting our contract. When the job was finished and he presented his final bill and we paid him, he had not paid a single sub-contractor for the work and they ALL had filed liens on the building for everything they did. . . Which totaled almost what we paid him. He had nothing left of the payments we had made at various points along the progress of building. . . and we were not the only ones he defrauded. Luckily, our attorney had required a pre-paid performance bond! Our sub-contractors got paid from the insurance company who provided the bond. Others customers of his did not. He went to prison for fraud and some of his subs did indeed go bankrupt. . . and some of his building projects that were in mid-construction were left un-completed when the subs found out what was going on. He'd been stringing people on for quite some time, borrowing from multiple banks to pay off earlier subs, and draining his own assets. By the time our building got finished, everything had gone up his nose.
That lien is the assignable collateral for the bank to lend you that money. . . It gives them assurance they can go after someone with greater assets than you (not that they won't go after you, as well) if you default to recover the principal of the loan.
I’ve heard several times about how hard it can be for contractors
to pry payment out of a Federal agency.
Reckon other governmental entities are similar.
I understand and appreciate everything you’ve said, particularly the aging, 2% net and such, everyone wants to get the best deal! But as for the rest of you, from the article 34,000 on a 200,000+ paint bill, that’s one hell of a break and if accurate seems to be a recurring theme.
Not only that, but if the project was only completed in June, it seems pretty early to have filed a lien for non-payment. Commercial invoices are rarely past due in such a short time. More likely, some of these contractors filed liens just as leverage to get paid promptly and they aren’t even past due yet.
Also a good point. Subs would rather post a lien on a property than sue the general, knowing that the client has more leverage on the contractor than the sub does.
The $34K figure is about right for the actual PAINT used on a $200K job. The lien might be by the paint supplier because the painter hasn’t paid them, or the painter took out the lien as collateral to borrow money to buy the paint as others have pointed out. Or it may just be that additional work was done based on a verbal OK, but since it wasn’t in the written contract the billing is disputed — nothing in construction should ever be done without getting the contract amended, but it happens everyday.
The article has none of the details needed to know what is really going on. It is strictly smear tactics.
yup
On a construction project, they could be. For example, the foundation sub-contractor may have done his work months ago and have moved on to other work. The critical pathway of the project requires the foundation be built before any other work can be built on it. Similarly grading of the grounds has to be done before the foundation can be built. . . etc. These contractors would most likely be paid early on in the flow of the project. . . same for rough in plumbing such as the water supply and sewer lines, etc, as well as running power into the site.
It could also be a poorly documented late change order in color or quality of the paint.
Yes, of course. But I was replying to a poster talking about painting and landscaping being the last things done on a project. Even then, on a large project I’d expect the painting and landscaping was paid in stages as different areas were completed. The most recent bills would likely be for work done just before completion which was in June, though. Those seem a bit recent to garner new liens due to late payment.
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