A contractor recorded himself undoing the work on a client’s property after they wouldn’t pay up. Jay (@perowao) posted a viral clip that’s accrued over 391,000 views as of Friday.
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In the video, he showcases the destruction of the work he just conducted for a homeowner. While several users applauded his reaction to their non-payment, others thought he could’ve taken different counter-measures.
Don’t pay, take away
Jay’s video begins with a forklift breaking up settled concrete on the ground in front of a residential home. He explains throughout the video that the customer was refusing to pay for the work he and his team performed.
Upon laying the concrete down in from of the patron’s home to create a walkway, they waited for compensation. However, once it became clear the patron wasn’t going to cough up the dough, Jay and his team went to work.
They broke up the concrete and he recorded the reversal of their labor. This was to demonstrate what happens whenever someone thinks they can get away with not settling their debts.
“All right this is what you get. You don’t want to pay, we’ll come back and take it away,” he says in the clip. “Don’t pay we take away. This is what happens. Yep, we laid down the concrete. We laid down what we gotta do, and you don’t pay, we gotta take away.”
Taking work back
A customer may think they could get away with either holding back or denying payment to a contract because the work’s already been completed. That’s because isn’t like they’re purchasing a car that could be repossessed. Furthermore, a significant amount of work on a permanent structure like concrete takes a lot of time to remove.
So, a patron might think that a contractor wouldn’t “take back” their work. After all, they already put time and effort into performing said labor. Why would they then invest more time and effort into reversing the work they already performed?
Jay clearly has no problem taking the time to undo his work. However, is this course of action legal for a contractor to do? There appear to be varying opinions on this recourse. Several individuals who replied to this Contractor Talk forum post cautioned against a fence installer from removing their work.
One person said once the fence was placed on the customer’s property, it belonged to the customer. Instead of removing the work, forum users recommended putting a lien on the property.
Lien on me
Oftentimes, contractors can place a lien on a property to ensure that they are paid for their work. Liens prevent individuals from selling property until the lien is paid off. Furthermore, these liens can assist in a court case where a business owner sues a client to pay back their debts.
Additionally, contractors can exhibit how a customer’s inability to pay their debts caused undue financial stress on a business owner. They can argue for loss of business as they were performing work for a client instead of potentially working on jobs for paying customers. If a contractor can also prove they had to go into debt as a result of the client’s unwillingness to pay, they can sue for more money.
These additional funds can cover the interest accrued as a result of the non-payment, for instance. The Daily Dot has previously covered an incident where a man realized his contractor’s unpaid bills culminated in a lien on his property. However, in this instance, the man wasn’t at fault.
He claims that he paid his contractor for their services, but since the contractor didn’t pay the materials supplier, he was slapped with a lien.
@perowao Don’t pay, we take away!
♬ original sound – Big Jay
Viewers think he did the right thing
One viewer remarked that contractors are indeed allowed to undo their work. They stated that they’re a police officer, and they enjoy responding to irate calls from customers who don’t settle their debts.
“As a law enforcement officer I love these calls for service,” they wrote. “It’s nice watching the homeowners face go from confident to defeated when I tell them the contractor owns the material until paid in full.”
Someone else said when clients don’t pay, they instantly resort to hitting them with a lien. “I’d slap a $10k removal/disposal fee lien on the property,” they wrote.
This was a sentiment echoed by someone else: “Just put a lien on the house.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Jay via TikTok comment for further information.
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