Termination or Cancellation of Contract

I would like to seek your help. I would like to terminate or cancel a contract with an individual contractor for a house construction. The contract agreement was not actually signed by both parties before engaging with the house project which was supposed to be completed in 6-8 months. The house is still unfinished and there are delays that the contractor refuses to explain despite requests for clarification. There is no termination or cancellation clause in the unsigned contract. Could I cancel or terminate the contract with immediate effect? Would there be a difference between a termination and cancellation in this case?

The issues that have unfolded in the past 7 months include:
1. as already mentioned, lack of communication of work progress
2. inadequate supervision of the work, including inadequate number of workers to complete the work in a timely fashion
3. negligence
4. some works not based on instruction or approved plans and completed without regular communication and consultation with the client.

Thank you for your time.

Have you paid in time allways (at least until the developer build to slow) ?

What does the contract say about building time?
If time isn't followed by builder (significant, not just few weeks) then the builder has broken the contract allready...

Thank you for your response. Yes, I have paid always. I would also disclose that I have queried two progress billings as there were sections in the billings that did not seem to reflect the percentages of work completed as of the given dates of billing. I never did get a response except a comment saying the billing was for approval anyway.

It was suggested though I have no proof as I was not there that no works have been done for at least three months on site.

The contract has indicated 180 days of building time.

" The contract agreement was not actually signed by both parties before engaging withthe house project which was supposed to be completed in 6-8 months. The house is still unfinished "
Signed by no one or only one? If one - who?
Still not signed?
Why started without signed contract??

Not finnished after how long time since start?
Is 6-8 months said in the contract?

No one signed the contract. The house has been under construction for more than a year now. The agreed project duration for the construction is 180 days. It was explained to me before the start of the built that usually completion will extend to 8 months. I was ok with this but to extend for 6 months more without reason or explanation is really unexpected.

thatcher wrote:No one signed the contract. The house has been under construction for more than a year now. The agreed project duration for the construction is 180 days. It was explained to me before the start of the built that usually completion will extend to 8 months. I was ok with this but to extend for 6 months more without reason or explanation is really unexpected.

Well. Verbal agreements are valid too (in most cases) but hard to prove things without SIGNED contract.
Why asn't the contract signed BEFORE the work started??

Who wrote the contract?
What does the contract say about finnish time and termination?

Thank you. I understand your point. I do not have an adequate reason to tell you why a contract has not been signed except that I know the contractor and I have kept to the contract as he would refer to it in our communication in relation to the construction. The expectation (which I admit I am wrong to assume) was that he would too. Some aspects of the plans for the build have not been followed as well, despite all my written efforts to seek clarification.

The contract states the completion should be within 180 days. The contractor sent me a copy of a contract before the formal start of the construction. I read this and I found it to be reasonable, but then again I have not read a similar contract before. I realised now that there is no termination clause for the contract, which I did not think I would potentially need at this point.

Thank you for your time.

thatcher wrote:Thank you. I understand your point. I do not have an adequate reason to tell you why a contract has not been signed except that I know the contractor and I have kept to the contract as he would refer to it in our communication in relation to the construction. The expectation (which I admit I am wrong to assume) was that he would too. Some aspects of the plans for the build have not been followed as well, despite all my written efforts to seek clarification.

The contract states the completion should be within 180 days. The contractor sent me a copy of a contract before the formal start of the construction. I read this and I found it to be reasonable, but then again I have not read a similar contract before. I realised now that there is no termination clause for the contract, which I did not think I would potentially need at this point.

Thank you for your time.

I see.
Perhaps what you have is enough to prove the contractor agreed to the contract IF you want that.
I suppouse you have paid MORE than the done work. So THAT can be a problem to be compensated for.

By the contract isn't signed, there isn't any signed contract to terminate
If the contractor would refer to the contract then it had been BROKEN by the CONTRACTOR allready, so you wouldn't need to terminate it

The contractor did agree to the contract by engaging with the project as I have done. I guess this is in this case a verbal agreement or could this be the contract implied in fact or quasi-contract?

I want to ensure that all my actions are within the contractual agreement though unsigned. The contractor wants me to follow what was agreed in terms of a contract and yet he would argue that we do not have anything signed for him to comply with the requirements of the construction. It has to work both ways. Thank you for your time. I think I know what I am going to do.

thatcher wrote:The contractor did agree to the contract by engaging with the project as I have done. I guess this is in this case a verbal agreement or could this be the contract implied in fact or quasi-contract?

Well. As I wrote there are some things, which PERHAPS can be proof enough THAT's the agreement, but by it isn't signed it can be questioned if any changes were agreed to.

thatcher wrote: I want to ensure that all my actions are within the contractual agreement though unsigned. The contractor wants me to follow what was agreed in terms of a contract and yet he would argue that we do not have anything signed for him to comply with the requirements of the construction. It has to work both ways. Thank you for your time. I think I know what I am going to do.

Do you want to:
A. get rid of the contractor?
He has broken the contract allready...

B. or make him finnish soon?
Then you can try if it help to hold the payments, pay him AFTER steps are done. If so, tell him first, so he get chance to get payed by speed up.

If you have paid him MUCH more than the work he has done, then you can think of tell him you can need to make a case against him if he don't pay back or finnish the work SOON.[/quote]