Spent $6,100 with a construction attorney rewriting my subcontracts. Two months later it held on a $38k scope fight
I came from the building side so I thought my paperwork was fine. It wasn't. I was using a two page sub agreement I inherited from a GC I worked under, with no change order procedure, no notice requirement, and a payment clause that just said progress payments.
I paid an attorney who does construction work in my state $6,100 to rebuild the package. Master sub agreement, a scope exhibit format, a change order form, and a written procedure that says no additional work gets paid without a signed change order before the work happens. She also walked me through the lien notice timeline that applies where I operate, which has short windows and differs by state, so anyone reading this needs their own state's timeline confirmed by their own counsel.
The test came on a 14 unit gut rehab. Framing sub claimed $38k in extras, mostly floor system work he said he found opened up. No signed change orders, three text messages of me saying "take a look at it." Under my old paper I think I pay most of that or I go to arbitration and pay some of it plus fees.
What actually happened is he filed a lien on the property, which nearly wrecked me because my construction lender had a draw scheduled 11 days later and the lien would have stopped it. My attorney sent the notice-and-procedure section with the unsigned change order log attached and we settled at $9,500 for the parts where I'd actually authorized work in writing. Lien released in nine days, draw funded on time.
What I'd keep. The pre-work signature requirement, because the argument isn't about whether the work happened. And the lien release timeline built into the settlement, because getting the release recorded was worth more to me that week than the dollar amount.