We paid a welder/grill maker to build a grill on wheels for us. We paid $2,350 down approximately 1/2. We have seen other grills he has made...

Question

We paid a welder/grill maker to build a grill on wheels for us. We paid $2,350 down approximately 1/2. We have seen other grills he has made and made a few alterations to his standard grill. He has put us off and off and we are not sure if there is even a grill or if he sold it to someone else to enhance his profit. What legal rights do we have. We cannot afford to just give 2350 away for the fun of it.

Answer

Did you get a receipt? A contract? You should first write him a demand letter, insisting that he return the money immediately or produce the grill by X date (a reasonable date to finish if you want the grill.) You can advise him that if he does not return the money or produce the grill by that date, it is your intention to go to the police and file a theft charge. Then, if X date comes without compliance, call the police to file a theft charge. Because of the amount, they should take it. (They may say it is a civil matter but the reality is that this is the kind of charge that is frequently filed - if one can just find the right cop. If the responding cop won't take the charge, then go to the police station and try. And / or contact your local prosecutor's office about filing charges. It really depends on the area you are in.)

Answer

As Ms. Henley says, this is a maybe criminal, maybe not situation. If he won't give you the grill and you can't get the case filed criminally, your only real option will be to sue him in JP court. You may well win in court (he might not even show up), but actually recovering the money in that situation is not always possible, and definitely not easy to do. What supposedly gets considered when the officer or the DA's office is deciding whether to file charges criminally is not just whether you got what you paid for, but whether the guy you paid had criminal intent at the moment he took your money. I guess the best way to explain that would be to say that it's probably not criminal if he had good intentions when he took the money, and really was going to follow through and do what he promised to, but he ran into problems of some sort later (he got a huge order and just hasnt been able to catch up, he or a family member got sick, he ran into a problem with a supplier, he got evicted from his shop, his wife left him and he turned into a total alcoholic and oops, he drank your money away). Often one thing that will be looked at closely is whether he has any kind of history of having done this to other people--a pattern of similar problems with other customers over a period of time tends to indicate his business is a fraud.