Financial dispute. Who's right?

amother

Plum

Sun, Dec 02 2018, 9:29 am

My central air conditioning unit broke down in August. It was very expensive to repair. When the repairman completed the job he called my husband to let him know he was finished and ask for payment. My husband and I were both at work. My dh told the repairman that he will be home in 2 hours and he'll pay him. The guy (who lives local) got angry and said he's leaving for a vacation for a month and needs the money immediately. My dh told he'll leave work early and meet him in 40 minutes to pay him. The guy threatened to disconnect things if my dh doesn't give him the money asap. When my dh arrived at the house the guy had disconnected something and the ac wasn't working. When my dh called the guy, he said he'll be back in a month and he'll fix it then. We had to call another guy who charged us $250 to fix what the first guy disconnected/broke. When the first guy came back a month later, dh paid him but minused $250. The guy has been calling us every other day demanding the $250. Who's right?

Orchid

Sun, Dec 02 2018, 9:41 am

(I also hope you leave bad reviews for this guy everywhere. Breaking something over an hour delay in payment where he said he'd fix it in a month?? So in his mind you'd go an entire month without AC? Please let us know who this is so we can avoid this thug. Thanks).

nicole81

Sun, Dec 02 2018, 9:47 am

What were the original terms of payment? If there were none, or just a vague "will pay upon completion of the job" with no exact end date or time, then I believe you're in the right.

However, this is definitely a shaila in my book.

WhatFor

Sun, Dec 02 2018, 9:53 am

Regardless of what your payment deal was, once your AC was fixed he had no right to break anything in your apartment including the AC he had just worked on. How is that not vandalizing your property? And if I hired someone to fix my AC and came home and it wasn't fixed, I probably wouldn't give him a dime. How do you know that he ever fixed anything at all for that matter?

amother

Brunette

Sun, Dec 02 2018, 10:20 am

amother wrote:

My dh works in a beis din, he is however not a dayan. He says according to the Torah if you hire someone to accomplish a job you only have to pay him if he completes the job. That being said this guy could argue that he could have fixed what he broke for less then 250.
You would have to ask a rav what to do. I'm sorry you had this! The guy sounds not normal.