PAPER WORK AND LEGALESE One problem with multipage documents, though, is that contractors don’t want to scare off customers with too much paperwork or legalese. That’s why many — even those that install a number of products in several states — prefer contracts that are one, maybe two, double-sided pages. But attorneys who specialize in home-improvement law say that contracts often need further changes because they don’t adequately communicate what contractors will and won’t do.
“The key thing is that you never want to have to go back to your contract,” says Stephen Phillips, a partner with Atlanta-based law firm Hendrick, Phillips, Salzman and Flatt, which works with the National Roofing Contractors Association. “You have to arrive at a clear understanding of what the customer wants and what the contractor is going to provide. If you have that, all other contractual prophylactics become less important.” D.S. Berenson, a partner with the Great Falls, Va.-firm Johanson Berenson LLP, thinks that contractors, in general, give their contracts short shrift. “They are using documents copied from someone else’s, or they don’t look for ways to improve them,”
Berenson says. “Then they complain when they get whacked by the attorney general.” Berenson says a contract is “a thing of beauty” when it is clear, understandable, easy to fill out, “and gives customers protection, too.” His list of contract “essentials” includes explaining what products are being installed. He also believes that contracts must address potentially contentious issues such as late cancellations, “acts of God” that might prevent project completion, and even what, precisely, constitutes “completion.”
SCOPE OF WORK DEFINED Last November, S&K Roofing, Siding and Windows in Eldersburg, Md., began using a new contract with expanded terms and conditions. “We changed a couple of things that came back to bite us,” says the company’s director of sales, Charlie McCurry. Five years ago, when attaching a new deck, S&K broke a pipe behind siding and the customer later blamed that break for causing mold growth. So the new contract stipulates that a homeowner is responsible for repositioning pipes or electrical wires that are exposed during a renovation. It also addresses S&K’s access to driveways and roofs because it’s too easy for customers to claim property damage. At one point, McCurry says this became so common that the company “was ‘buying’ a driveway a week.”
Contractors don’t want their field staff getting stalled by contractual contretemps; that’s one reason why they don’t honor oral agreements. “I don’t want my crews showing up and saying, ‘The salesperson said …’” says Davis, whose technical measurers re-check all contracts and will kick back discrepancies to the salesperson. This arrangement limits Mr. Rogers Windows’ configuration errors to 1% on $8 million in business.
The fine print in most contracts also details what crews will and won’t do. Win-Dor won’t reinstall security bars because they often weren’t installed to code in the first place, Templin says. And at Matus Windows, inGlenside, Pa., the contract says owners are responsible for glass cleaning, reinstalling security systems and curtains, and paint touchups, says president Alex Matus. The contract states that Matus Windows will repair wood rot and replace the wood if necessary, but if there are termites, “we call the customer’s attention to the problem,” Matus says, “and they need to call pest control.”
Renaissance Exteriors uses separate contracts for different products that vary slightly in their specifics about installation, Pattison says. Other contractors prefer to attach product-specific addenda to their standard contracts. America’s Best Home Remodelers, in Golden, Colo., uses addenda with check-off boxes to describe the work being done; its contract for sunrooms has 28 “included/not included” check boxes. Owner Rick Duggan says he won’t present customers with a “time-performance” contract because too many factors can slow down a job. “I’ve been waiting since August for a HOA [homeowners association] to give me an answer on a patio cover,” he said in early November. Duggan adds that roofing contractors, in particular, shouldn’t restrain themselves by time-performance because “what if the market gets hit with hail storms, as ours recently did?”