Hiring Family or Friends as Your Modular Home Contractor

Hiring family or friends to act as your modular home contractor or one of your subcontractors can create problems unless you spell out their responsibilities clearly in advance. Make sure you have a written agreement that explains the scope of work, specifications, and price in detail. Also, ensure that they will schedule their work in a time fashion.

Hiring Family as Your Modular Home Contractor – Part 1

One of my customers, who acted quite competently as his own modular home contractor, hired his brother to complete the electrical work on his Two-Story home. My customer did a commendable job getting all of the subcontractors to show up on time, and except for one subcontractor, would likely have finished the work ahead of schedule. But this one subcontractor (yes, his brother the electrician) did not complete his work until many weeks after the others had completed theirs. The electrician told his brother that since he was doing him a favor by taking the job, he should understand that he needed to finish his other, “real” work first. He figured that his brother would understand the significant delay, since “after all, we’re family.”

Hiring Friends as Your Modular Home Contractor

Another of my customers, a single man, hired two friends to complete all of the interior and exterior carpentry button-up on his Cape Cod modular home. Although the friends were professional carpenters, they had no experience with modular construction and did not know all that needed to be done. My customer told his friends what he thought needed to be done, but somehow the friends got it wrong. Maybe my customer, who was also new to modular construction, did not understand the scope of work, or maybe he explained it poorly, or maybe the friends thought they knew what was needed and so did not really listen. Since the three of them were friends, they did not think it was necessary to put their agreement in writing. Once the friends discovered that they had more to do than they anticipated, they told my customer that they would not be able to complete all of the work they originally planned to do for the price they quoted. They had not budgeted the extra time or materials, and they already had given my customer a great price. My customer felt this was unfair. He had taken his friends’ word that the job would be complete and had not included additional money in his budget. The friends, however, felt that their original agreement was based on a misrepresentation by my customer of what was required. In the end, my customer borrowed money from his parents and paid his friends to complete the work. I have no idea how their personal relationships faired after the house was built.

Hiring Family as Your Modular Home Contractor – Part 2

Yet another customer, who used my company to serve as the modular home contractor to build her T-Ranch home, hired her brother-in-law to complete the plumbing and heating systems. In hopes of saving money, she hired him on an hourly basis (“time plus materials”). Her brother-in-law did a fine job, from everything I could see. I later found out that she paid more than I would have charged her. I suspect her brother-in-law’s inexperience with modular homes caused him to be less proficient with the work, which caused him to take longer than would a subcontractor with modular experience. The brother-in-law then charged my customer for his “extra” hours.
For more information about hiring family or friends as your modular home contractors, see Selecting a General Contractor in my book The Modular Home.