Practice
Construction payment and defect disputes
Building projects run on paper: pay applications, change orders, daily logs. When the money stops, that paper is the case.
Halina Sobczak leads this group. We represent owners, general contractors, subcontractors and suppliers, on commercial and residential projects from Niagara Falls to Jamestown. We move early on liens and bond claims, because their deadlines are short and don't bend.
Cases like
Unpaid pay applications and retainage
Mechanic's liens and payment bond claims
Delay and acceleration claims
Defective work and unfinished punch lists
Terminations for default or convenience
How we start a construction claim
The first weeks decide what you can still recover.
Protect the lien
We check the filing deadline the day you call, and file to keep the claim alive while we talk.
Rebuild the schedule
We line up the daily logs, emails and photos to show who held the job up, and when.
Price the dispute
We weigh the claim against the cost of chasing it, so you decide with real numbers.
Asked often on job-site disputes
How fast do I have to file a mechanic's lien?
Fast. The deadline runs from your last work or delivery, and on some public projects it is shorter still. Call as soon as a payment is clearly late.
The contract says we have to arbitrate. Is that bad for us?
Not necessarily. Arbitration can be quicker and more private, though it costs more up front. We handle both and will tell you what we'd expect in yours.
We're the owner, and the contractor walked off the job. What now?
Document the site as it stands, keep every invoice, and don't hire the replacement until we've looked at the termination clause. Doing it in the wrong order can shift the blame.
Payment stopped on a job?
Call before the lien deadline passes. We'll tell you what to file, and when.