Looking to get a unbiased opinion on a personal business situation

[jerry_r60]

Real Texans consider a Texas handshake as more binding than something on paper.

In other words, a verbal agreement.

[Odinvalknir]

Based on the original post, I do not believe it was the beginning of a budding business general contractor sub-contractor relationship since it was just an online interaction that led to a referral. Here are some points I think are key. However, we are just hearing one side of the story.

So I am not a residential contractor in the general sense. I work in the chemical plants as a electrician, instrumentation technician. Just a little bit of background.


I I have been out of work for about a month and decided I would pick up some side work doing General Contracting out in the public world as an electrician. A guy that I met through a job site on Facebook put me on to a job at a house that he has done some work in before. The guy had no work of his own skill or craft at the house he just knew these people needed something done and that I wanted to work. We do not have any business agreements documented or verbal. To me it just seems like he was playing the middleman, and got $100 for his effort. He wanted to charge the landlord or the tenants 30% on top of my bid for the work even though he was not going to be doing any of the work himself. The landlord and tenants had my phone number and called to ask me if I was willing and able to do the work not under any agreements with the original contractor. To which I said yes because as I stated there is no agreements between me and the other guy saying that I am his subcontractor or that I have to pay him any percentage or that the landlord has to pay him any percentage of my work. The contractor caught wind of this as you would expect and is now mad at me for taking on the work and at least in his mind cutting him out of the equation. Am I in the wrong from taking on the work not being his subcontractor but going at it under my own name?


Tl:dr got put on a job through somebody that I do not know personally and he believes I am cutting him out of the equation because the homeowner did not want to pay him 30% on top of my work even though there are no agreements between myself and the person who directed me to the job

That would be like me telling you about someone I knew needed some electrical work done and putting the two of you in touch with one another and then expecting a 30% override. I do not believe that is how it does or should work. I do agree if the referring contractor performed the functions of a general contractor and there was a GC and subcontractor agreement, verbal or written, then the OP should not have done the work direct but that is not what the OP says happened.

He was fairly irritated at me afterwards. Apparently he has done a couple different jobs at this particular house. He has zero time in the trade of electrical work, and is terrified of it to the point of freaking out when I asked him if he could hold a light fixture for me while I did some troubleshooting the day before. If he had come to me after we were at the house and I was troubleshooting the issues, and said he's going to subcontract the work to me and here's an agreement where you get what you ask for and I get a piece on top of what you did the job for. I would have said that's fine and left it at that. It did not come to light until a few days after I had done the job how the tenant got my phone number and information and therefore cut him out of the equation themselves. Apparently the tenant who is renting the house is good friends with somebody that I know and manage to get my phone number through them. When the GC was calling and texting me being irritated about the whole situation he claimed that he had a lot of other work he was going to put me on but that I had screwed that up because of this situation. Again no mention was ever made to me about being a subcontractor working under his business name. I would have approached the whole thing a lot differently if he had said that in the beginning and not just pay here these people who need work can you do it. But all is well that ends well, I have picked up a few more jobs from these particular people and a few others and I guess I might go into business for myself for a little while until I decide I want to go back into the plants. Or until a better opportunity back in the plans presents itself. Because right now I am thoroughly enjoying working for myself