I was involved in a lawsuit with a builder who worked on restoring our home. We had to hire a lawyer midway bc he was going against our contract (charged us for things in the contract he said he would pay for and didn't give us credit for materials we reused). Our lawyer kept telling us to string him along to finish the job as much as possible even though the builder kept asking us to pay him in full BEFORE he finished up the job. (Again against our contract). We told him we would settle when we had the final building inspection completed. Finally he confronted my husband about why we wouldn't pay him and my husband mentioned our lawyer. He walked out on the job for a couple of days but was brought back in by a letter from our lawyer stating he was in breach of contract. He came back, but being the hothead that he was he came into our home and removed some cabinet doors off our finished cabinets that he had already made and installed awhile before I figured out he wanted to hold them for collateral. The lawyer sent him a letter and told him to return them. HE didn't. So then he came back on the day they came to do a final building inspection and he removed even more doors and drawers a total of 52 (one from every room in the house he had redone). All were in perfect condition. He also took the sticker from our water meter that said it had passed so we could not get the system turned on. We ended up calling the county to complain and got them to put another sticker on our meter. In the meantime, out lawyer gave him a week to return ALL our cabinet drawers and doors and let him know if he did not do so law enforcement would be invoked. A week went by. The builder didn't return them. So this is the catch. Our lawyer said to wait until the following Monday. The deadline was on a Friday to give him some extra time to change his mind. Once he did not do anything we went to the county sheriff's department and swore out a warrant for his arrest. The sheriff called us half way home that the builder had been called on the warrant and wanted him to return the items requested. Builder finally hired his own lawyer and I suspect his lawyer told him that what he did was a felony. Anyway, he returned them the next day but not before he had already removed the hardware and sanded down some of the doors. He lied and said he was gonna fix them. We fired him and had another builder finish the job. Long story.... but we still haven't resolved this suit bc COVID has so far kept us out of court. We were gonna let it go even though he owed us money but he served us with papers over a year ago saying we owed him 8k and he put an intent for a lien on our home. (even though we had proof he owed us money). Because he filed a suit we filed a counter suit after the deadline for him being able to change the amount of money of which we owed him (which our lawyer said would be thrown out in a court of law due to his contract allowances and he had to be exact in what we owed him and he wasn't.). Morale of the story: So yeah a lawyer will sometime wait and let people think about what they did before they do anything legal against them.

I was involved in a lawsuit with a builder who worked on restoring our home. We had to hire a lawyer midway bc he was going against our contract (charged us for things in the contract he said he would pay for and didn't give us credit for materials we reused). Our lawyer kept telling us to string him along to finish the job as much as possible even though the builder kept asking us to pay him in full BEFORE he finished up the job. (Again against our contract). We told him we would settle when we had the final building inspection completed. Finally he confronted my husband about why we wouldn't pay him and my husband mentioned our lawyer. He walked out on the job for a couple of days but was brought back in by a letter from our lawyer stating he was in breach of contract. He came back, but being the hothead that he was he came into our home and removed some cabinet doors off our finished cabinets that he had already made and installed awhile before I figured out he wanted to hold them for collateral. The lawyer sent him a letter and told him to return them. HE didn't. So then he came back on the day they came to do a final building inspection and he removed even more doors and drawers a total of 52 (one from every room in the house he had redone). All were in perfect condition. He also took the sticker from our water meter that said it had passed so we could not get the system turned on. We ended up calling the county to complain and got them to put another sticker on our meter. In the meantime, out lawyer gave him a week to return ALL our cabinet drawers and doors and let him know if he did not do so law enforcement would be invoked. A week went by. The builder didn't return them. So this is the catch. Our lawyer said to wait until the following Monday. The deadline was on a Friday to give him some extra time to change his mind. Once he did not do anything we went to the county sheriff's department and swore out a warrant for his arrest. The sheriff called us half way home that the builder had been called on the warrant and wanted him to return the items requested. Builder finally hired his own lawyer and I suspect his lawyer told him that what he did was a felony. Anyway, he returned them the next day but not before he had already removed the hardware and sanded down some of the doors. He lied and said he was gonna fix them. We fired him and had another builder finish the job. Long story.... but we still haven't resolved this suit bc COVID has so far kept us out of court. We were gonna let it go even though he owed us money but he served us with papers over a year ago saying we owed him 8k and he put an intent for a lien on our home. We filed a counter suit after the deadline for him being able to change the amount of money of which we owed him (which our lawyer said would be thrown out in a court of law due to his contract allowances and he had to be exact in what we owed him and he wasn't.). Morale of the story: So yeah a lawyer will sometime wait and let people think about what they did before they do anything legal against them.