I have experience in this.. filing liens is a pain, especially if the locations of the jobs you worked on are in several different locations/counties. You have to go directly to those localities to file the liens and they cost you money to do so. Best bet is , if you have all the information of your contractor or subcontractor.. you can go through small claims court. If i read it correctly they owe you 4k.. Most small claims courts allow a limit in that range that you can sue for. Depends on locality. Things you will need: that will assist you to collect your money...
1. Name , Address and phone # of the contractor you were working for.
2. Bank information of aforementioned contractor. Ie do you have a copy of the checks they paid you with or routing number from direct deposit and name of bank that payments were made from.. ( This will be extremely helpful when collecting)
3. Copies of all completed work orders that you did under this contractor that you did not get paid for.
-Once you have all this information go online and see if you can download the proper paperwork off the website of the court that is in the same locality that the contractor lives in. If not head on down to the court house and talk to the somebody in the clerk of courts office and they can provide these to you.
-Fill out all of the paperwork properly pay special attention to detail. Anything that is incorrect will result in failure to collect or even file and you'll have to start over
-Once you have filled out your paperwork you can go down to the courts and file. Usually costs under $100 to file but keep in mind when you collect you can tack that on to the collection dollar amount
-You will get a court date and summons will be issued to contractor and yourself. Odds are the contractor won't show up, in which case you get default judgement. If he does you can show the judge your completed work orders. That usually will get judgement in your favor. Odds are he won't even show up.
-Once you get your judgement you can get the papers to file to collect the judgement. This is where having all his bank info available very helpful. You can file 2 different ways to collect. You can file a bank attachment or a garnishment other than personal income.
-If you have the bank information from your direct deposit or pay check you file paper work with the bank and court. That is if you know which bank he banks with. Filing this way the bank will hold the money directly from his account in escrow for you and pay you out accordingly. But if you are having trouble with this you can file the alternative way. Garnishment other than personal income.
-Garnishment other than personal income is the way to file for 1099 contractors/subcontractors and it has to be this type because he's not an employee of the the parent company he gets his work from. You would file with the court the proper paperwork that would be sent directly to the main company which I believe you said was FTS. They would take the money directly from the pay that he would receive and send it to you until the judgement is fulfilled. If he still gets work from this company this would be the quickest way to go.
-Chances are once he starts getting notices from the court about garnishments he will try to do a payment plan especially if he is still getting work from the company and still has to pay subs.
-Keep in mind that this doesn't happen overnight. It will take a few weeks to get a court date and couple weeks after the judgement is set for all notices to be sent out. Once you file garnishment paperwork it takes a couple more weeks for him to respond and banks to respond. All in all it is usually a couple months but once the judgement is ruled you will get a % based interest rate on the judgement from the date of the judgement that adds up from that date until he pays you. Plus he will have to pay you all of the filing fees involved with the case.
I hope this helps you in collecting your money. I know it's not easy but worth your time to collect your money. You earned it. I hate to see fellow installers getting screwed by dirt bags.
Joe
Re: Cable company fails to pay... What can I do.
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