Hiring an Apartment Painter in New York City: 5 Contract Tips From a Lawyer/Painter
So, you live in New York City, and you are going to hire a painter to work on your place. Whether you plan on researching an interior painter online, hiring from craigslist or another listing site, or hiring based on a referral, you should consider the following contract tips I will give below. Why? I'm a lawyer, and a painting contractor. I hear some horror stories from New Yorkers' apartment painting experiences. This article wont go into what you need to look for before you hire a painter, but what to do after you've vetted and picked your paint contractor. These tips I give you may help you to get a better deal from your painter, and also may protect you from horrible experience with your painting contractor if anything goes awry.
1. Order the materials yourself. Once you are sure about colors and paint brand, have the painter make a list of how much paint and and materials will be needed for the scope of the work, and if you have time, order the materials yourself. If you are OK using Home Depot paint, you can go and fill the basket with whatever you need (at a huge savings over local hardware stores) and they will deliver the materials to your place for less than $50 anywhere in NYC. You will see that paint and supplies are about half the price as your local hardware store. You can also call some of the local paint vendors and order right over the phone, and they will gladly deliver for free (but again, their paint is going to be much more expensive than Home Depot's paint). If you are not cost sensitive, you can order from Merit Kaplan and they deliver anywhere in Manhattan. Why do this? Because many painters charge a premium for the materials if they buy them, and some may even charge you for the highest quality paint, but actually use the contractor grade, and pocketing the difference.
2. Get your painter to outline the entire estimate in detail, and itemize each separate fee the painter is charging you. This way, if you change your mind later and decide not to have the bathroom painted with chalk-board paint, you can easily see what it will cost you to eliminate that part of the job. It also allows you to pay your painter progress payments based on each completed section of the paint job. This will keep the painter's estimate honest too, since the estimate wont be an arbitrary number of "$6000.00 to paint". Its better for both you and your painter to see that it costs $60 to paint the door, and there are 10 doors, so the $600.00 makes sense.
3. If the project will take more than a few days, or will require more than 2 visits, have your painter submit a work schedule of when he will be there, and when each task will be finished. Incentivize the contract based on this schedule, so that if your painter doesn't finish the tasks on schedule, you will get a discount, but if he does, he will get a bonus. For instance, finishing the job ahead of schedule or on time should earn the painter a 10% bonus, cash. But if e finishes more than 2 days late, you should get a 10% discount, and 1 point for each additional day beyond the 3rd day. Why do this? Painting contractors are notoriously flaky. If your painter tells you it will take a week, then it will probably take 3. Sometimes this is not the fault of the painter, and no penalty should be assessed, but sometimes your painter just isn't organized, or is juggling too many jobs, or is just lazy. You will have to live in your apartment and suffer through the paint process, If your painter knows your project is time sensitive, he will more likely be there finishing the contract.
4. Make sure the contract requires the painter to get your written authorization before adding any fees to the contract, and releases you from liability for unauthorized work add-ons. You may have agreed to pay $3500, and would surely not be happy that the painter is billing you for extras amounting to hundreds of dollars in additional fees.
5. Be sure to pay only a small deposit--enough to start the job. Structure the payments throughout the project based on progress points, so that your painter can work toward those points, and expect to be paid once those tasks are complete. This will assure the work is getting done is stages, and that you aren't extending too much cash before you see the quality of work. If the quality is bad, you can fire the painter without losing the whole budget.
Best,
Don the Painter