Construction Payment Claim Lawsuit | Recovering the Full Construction Payment Through Litigation by Assisting the Client

A 🔗construction payment lawsuit is, as the name suggests, a lawsuit filed with the court by a person who has performed construction work in order to receive the construction payment.

It arises when, even though the work has been completed in accordance with the contract, the party that ordered the work does not pay the amount specified in the contract on time or breaches the terms of the contract.

The principal causes of construction payment claim lawsuits include 🔗violation of the Fair Transactions in Subcontracting Act, nonperformance of the contract, delayed payment, contract changes, and quality problems.

To file a construction payment claim lawsuit, it is necessary to prove ▲that a contract for work was concluded, ▲that the parties agreed that compensation would be paid for the work, and ▲that the work specified in the contract was completed.

Construction work contracts, work agreements, specifications, material purchase statements, building design drawings, estimates, and building delivery documents may be used for this proof.

For a construction payment claim lawsuit, you may first send a certified content-proof letter.

A certified content-proof letter has no legal binding force or enforceability in itself, but it can place psychological pressure on the other party and induce payment of the amount or a settlement.

A certified content-proof letter can also interrupt the extinctive prescription of the construction payment claim under certain conditions, and it may later be submitted as supporting evidence in the construction payment claim lawsuit.

The next step is to obtain a provisional attachment or a provisional injunction.

Pursuing a construction payment claim lawsuit is ultimately for the purpose of obtaining the authority to enforce against the contractor's property and satisfying the claim.

However, even after pursuing a construction payment claim lawsuit over a long period and obtaining a title of execution, it may be of no use if the debtor's property, such as real estate, cannot be identified.

To prevent this situation, it is recommended to identify the debtor's property before filing the construction payment claim lawsuit and to set up a 🔗provisional attachment or provisional injunction, blocking the debtor from disposing of or concealing the property.

For the construction payment claim lawsuit, the attorney asserted the portion of loss in the assigned labor caused by the delayed delivery of missing materials.

The defendant had agreed in the contract to supply the materials needed for manufacturing the equipment.

However, the materials the defendant was supposed to supply were not delivered for more than two weeks, so the work was delayed, and the client had to bear the resulting loss in labor.

The attorney handling the construction payment lawsuit emphasized that the work could not be carried out because of the defendant's delivery delay and that the client therefore suffered a loss in labor costs due to a cause attributable to the defendant.

The attorney handling the construction payment lawsuit asserted that, because of the defendant's fault, the client suffered a loss equal to the difference between the labor costs the client actually spent and the subcontract payment the client actually received, and that the defendant should compensate this.