Problem with Painter

[customer]

Here is the situation. We hired a professional painting contractor. We have a 1920's stucco bungalow in CA. The painter gave us an estimate. We accepted his bid. Not the cheapest, but not the highest. Some background information: we bought the house 4 years ago from flippers. What we discovered after the painter started powerwashing was that whoever painted the house when it was flipped applied a polymer paint without a primer. So the house is completely spotty with paint chipping off everywhere. The painter is beside himself because he says his guys can't scrape the entire house by hand. We have had them scrape as much as they can (especially attacking the areas where the paint is practically falling off). The painter now wants to revise his original estimate. My question is twofold: who aborbs this cost? The painter or us or both? Should he have foreseen this problem? And, what can be done to repair this short of sandblasting or applying a stripping gel to the entire house? Thanks for any help/advice.

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[dpb]

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Well, you could try to enforce the bid price but he'll just walk or cut down in some other area to make up for it so you'll not win.

Negotiate a reasonable compromise to deal w/ the situation as you now have it.

Would have been better (obviously) if he'd done a little more work before hand, but stuff happens...

Consider -- Did any of the other bids uncover the situation? Almost certainly not, or you wouldn't be surprised now. (Or, if they did and you rejected them as the high cost, now you know why they were high but I'm thinking it really is news from the sound of the post.)

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[daszkiew2000]

WTF made you even think about buying a house from F L I P P E R ?

[ransley]

If the stucco paint is washing off he cant forsee that it must have been junk paint, I never primed stucco, I just used top quality paint. If trim is pealing the question is where, up high or at ground level and how is it pealing, in long sheets and did it look good before. When painters bid scraping trim you bid on how bad it is and what you think it will take to prep it. I had a contractor in to redo an apt, he saw a demo to copy, all new apliances etc. Two hours on the job he said I had 500 in extras to put in the apliances, I argued, he agreed, point is he came in the job to screw me for more cash. Realy cant say for sure without more info and photos.

[trader4]

What does the contract say about the amount of prep work, procedures, etc? Do you have a contract?

[Tony Hwang]

I'll say the same. Had house inspected B4 buying?

[ransley]

I could see an unforseeable issue on trim, no primer, cheap paint, painted in hot sun, it peels in sheets when a scraper hits it. That is not the painters fault as its rare to happen.

[cm]

I very much doubt most inspectors would catch the paint problem.

We just completed the repairs from an inspectors punch list and he missed all kinds of problems on the house. We find this all the time.

cm