Construction in New York City is a business where the money always arrives later than the work, the contract was drafted by the party above you, and the statutes that matter most are ones nobody reads until something has gone wrong. A contractor's legal problems are rarely exotic. They are the same problems every year: an owner who will not release retainage, a change order performed on a verbal instruction, a delay everyone caused and nobody will pay for, a lien deadline, and a project where the general contractor is now liable for a subcontractor's unpaid wages.
The Law Offices of Albert Goodwin represents general contractors, subcontractors, specialty trades, suppliers, construction managers, developers, and owners in New York City.
What We Handle
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Getting Paid
New York's Prompt Payment Act imposes deadlines on approval and payment, pay-if-paid clauses are unenforceable here, and retainage is regulated. See construction payment disputes. For securing the debt against the property, see mechanics liens, which covers filing deadlines, validity requirements, extension, foreclosure, and discharge.
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Lien Law Trust Funds
Construction payments in New York are statutory trust assets, and using them for the wrong purpose is a breach of trust that reaches the individuals who directed it, personally. This is the most underappreciated exposure in the industry. See Lien Law Article 3-A trust claims.
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Change Orders and Delay
Extra work performed without a signed change order, and delay damages barred by a no-damage-for-delay clause that has recognized exceptions. See change order and delay claims.
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Contracts
The provisions that decide disputes years later: scope, indemnity, notice, termination, and dispute resolution. See construction contracts.
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Licensing
An unlicensed home improvement contractor in New York City generally cannot sue to be paid, at all, even for work performed and accepted. See contractor licensing.
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Defect Claims
Defending and pursuing claims for defective work, and the limitations periods that govern them. See construction defect claims.
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Site Injury Exposure
New York imposes liability on owners and general contractors for certain height-related worker injuries that exists in no other state. See Labor Law 240 and 241 exposure.
The New York Rules That Surprise Out-of-State Contractors
- Pay-if-paid clauses are void. A clause making payment to a subcontractor conditional on the general contractor's receipt of payment from the owner is unenforceable in New York as against public policy, because it operates as a waiver of Lien Law rights. Pay-when-paid clauses that merely fix a reasonable time for payment are treated differently.
- Construction funds are trust funds. Article 3-A of the Lien Law makes payments received on a project trust assets for the benefit of those who supplied labor and materials to that project, with personal liability and criminal exposure for diversion.
- Indemnity has a statutory ceiling. An agreement purporting to indemnify a party against liability for its own negligence in a construction contract is void, though carefully drafted partial indemnity limited to the indemnitor's own share is generally permitted.
- General contractors owe subcontractors' wages. On most private construction projects, a general contractor is liable for wages owed by its subcontractors at any tier, with a look-back period and a right to demand payroll records. This changed the industry's subcontractor vetting practices and is discussed on our payment page.
- Height-related injury liability is absolute. Comparative negligence of the injured worker is not a defense under the scaffold law.
- Licensing is a bar to recovery. Not a penalty, a bar. An unlicensed home improvement contractor generally cannot recover in contract or in quantum meruit.
Where Contractors Lose Money That They Should Have Kept
Across the disputes we handle, the same failures recur, and all of them are cheap to prevent:
- Notice provisions ignored. Contracts require written notice of a claim, a delay, or a differing site condition within a short period. Performing the work and claiming later is the most common way a valid claim is lost.
- Change orders performed on a verbal direction, with no writing and no reservation of rights.
- Lien deadlines missed, which are measured from the last date of work and cannot be extended by negotiation.
- Waivers signed without reading them. Unconditional lien waivers exchanged for progress payments routinely waive pending change order and delay claims.
- Daily reports not kept, leaving no contemporaneous record of manpower, weather, interference, or stacking of trades when a delay claim is later made.
- Trust funds used for the wrong project, because cash was needed elsewhere.
Related Practice
Construction matters overlap with the rest of a contractor's business: breach of construction contract, breach of contract generally, collections, entity formation, personal guaranties on supply and equipment accounts, wage and hour claims, and arbitration, which many construction contracts require.
Talk to a Construction Attorney in New York City
Whether you are owed money on a completed project, holding a claim you are not sure you preserved, facing a lien on your property, or reviewing a contract before signing it, the earlier the documents are reviewed the more options exist. Construction claims are governed by deadlines that do not move, and by the paperwork created while the work was going on.
Call the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin at 212-233-1233 for a consultation.
You can contact us by phone at 212-233-1233 or by email at [email protected].
