Always get it in writing.
A West Vancouver homeowner has been ordered to pay more than $80,000 to a contractor after a protracted dispute over who broke contracts, alleged construction deficiencies and whether or not he was completing the jobs they agreed on.
Contractor Gabor Jozsa sought an $83,360 lien on the luxury Park Lane home of Maria Isabel Charlwood-Sebazco, claiming she had not paid the remainder of her bills or the HST for the work he did between August 2012 and January 2013.
Charlwood-Sebazco levelled a counterclaim that Jozsa breached their contracts, that there were 47 deficiencies in the work he did and that he did not perform significant parts of his contract that she had to hire other contractors to complete. She also claimed Jozsa was negligent and that she was owed general, special and punitive damages for mental distress because of his aggressive demands for payment.
Jozsa had already been paid $228,000 for his renovation work on the multimillion-dollar Altamont home when a dispute arose over when the project would be complete and Charlwood-Sebazco’s contractor friend advised her much of the work was shoddy.
But in a recent court ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice John Steeves disagreed, siding with the contractor in almost every aspect of the dispute.
Of the so-called deficiencies in Jozsa’s work, much of it was from portions of the job that were not yet finished when Charlwood-Sebazco ordered him not to come back to the property, even though he asked to come back and finish the job, the judge ruled.
In some cases, the homeowner had claimed Jozsa installed the wrong components, like a sink faucet and door handles, when she had in fact chosen them with him, the judge stated in his decision, and many deficiencies were on portions of the home Jozsa wasn’t even contracted to work in.
“The defendant says in her pleadings that there was a deficiency in the plaintiff’s work in the basement when none of his work was there,” Steeves wrote in his decision. “Her idea of the scope of the work is quite unreliable. Indeed, it is clear that she seeks through her counterclaim to have the plaintiff pay for things that were plainly not part of her contracts with the plaintiff, essentially a different renovation.”
The judge knocked about $2,500 off of Jozsa’s claim due to actual deficiencies including two poorly installed bluestone concrete tiles. Steeves also left the door open to Jozsa being held responsible for a crack in the fireplace stone, pending further investigation.
On the matter of more than $33,000 in unpaid HST, Steeves did not accept Charlwood-Sebazco’s claim it was to have been included in the original contract quotes.
“Apparently the plaintiff did not know about the need to charge tax on his bills until he met with an accountant recommended by the defendant,” the judge wrote. “As well, it is quite unreasonable for the defendant to say at trial that she did not know that HST was applicable. That is akin to choosing an item in a store based on the price tag and then being surprised that tax is charged at the cashier.”
The judge also rejected Charlwood-Sebazco’s claim to damages due to mental distress.
“I note that the plaintiff in January (2013) agreed to resolve 39 deficiencies and discuss the others but this was not accepted by the defendant. This fact is counter to the assertion by the defendant that the plaintiff used aggressive tactics to get her to pay,” Steeves wrote.
