How to Write a Review on Remodel Work
Can Your Contractor Sue You for a Negative Review?
In our litigious society, trashing your contractor's shoddy workmanship could state you in court. Hither's how to offer criticism and avoid expensive legal hassles.
Your contractor didn't bear witness upwards on time, botched the job, won't ready what'due south wrong, and now is demanding full payment.
You're so mad you could spit.
So you go online to mail a negative review and vent some pick words, hoping to warn others about the yo-yo whom you hired in good faith. Side by side thing you know, that contractor is suing you, claiming you lot harmed his business organization.
Yikes! What happened to the Get-go Amendment? Can't you say what yous want?
Apparently not. In Virginia, a homeowner who felt shoddy workmanship had ruined her remodeling project posted scathing reviews of her contractor on Angie'due south List and Yelp, even implying that he stole her jewelry.
The contractor didn't have the estrus lightly and sued the homeowner for $750,000, claiming the defamation resulted in loss of business.
What followed was a series of suits, countersuits, and more online accusations. Ultimately, a Virginia court ruled in favor of the contractor, but refused to honour any damages, proverb that both parties had managed to defame each other.
Is Posting a Negative Online Review Asking for Trouble?
A botched remodeling job is a major headache -- both emotionally and financially. A negative online review tin can be a potent fashion to shed a calorie-free on shady contractors and poor workmanship.
Just voicing an opinion isn't a carte blanche to launch into tirades. In fact, the Virginia homeowner was lucky on 2 counts:
- She lost the case only avoided paying damages because the contractor had publicly criticized her in kind.
- Her case was handled by a pro bono lawyer. Otherwise, she would accept been on the hook for court costs and lawyer fees, win or lose.
"The fact that she had to get a lawyer and go all the way to a trial has got to be a cautionary tale," says Paul Levy, an chaser for Public Citizen, a First Amendment advocacy organisation. "If you lot get sued, information technology can end upwards costing you thousands to defend yourself, even if the verdict goes your way."
Tips If Y'all Like to Mail service Reviews
Check your homeowners insurance policies to see if yous're protected in the issue of a libel lawsuit.
- If your policy covers personal liability, you're probably protected against claims of libel and slander.
- If not, yous can purchase an umbrella policy that covers libel, or add together a rider to your current policy for nigh $200-$300 per year.
The Contractor's POV
If you have a beef with a building contractor, you're in good company. Here's a quick rundown of the businesses that received the near Ameliorate Business organisation Bureau consumer complaints in 2012, the latest twelvemonth for which it has comprehensive data:
| Rank | Business Type | BBB Complaints (millions) |
| #1 | Roofing contractors | 3.2 |
| #2 | General contractors | 2.3 |
| #three | Used automobile dealers | 1.nine |
| #iv | Plumbers | 1.6 |
| #five | New car dealers | 1.5 |
| #half dozen | Remodeling contractors | 1.5 |
| #7 | Attorneys & lawyers | one.2 |
In improver to registering a complaint with the BBB, an online criticism posted at Angie's Listing, Homestars, Service Magic, Yelp, and other forums makes the result more visible.
A public expose not just exacts retribution, information technology may assistance solve the trouble. Many professionals take negative criticism seriously, and volition piece of work with the homeowner to fix problems and right wrongs in the hopes that the homeowner will either retract the negative comments or at least say the outcome was resolved to her satisfaction.
But the reality is that by the time a contractor has a adventure to smoothen things out, the damage to his reputation may already be done. A negative review tends to pop up more than prominently in search results than a host of positive reviews, says Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, a visitor that works to protect the respectability of companies and individuals.
"For homeowners, dealing with contractors certainly can be an emotional outcome," says Fertik. "A homeowner might not understand the complexities or skill set of a contractor'due south business, and the consequence may be a review that's exaggerated and deleterious."
Will a Contractor Sue You lot?
Turning the tables -- and suing a homeowner for posting negative comments -- doesn't necessarily make the best sense for contractors.
For one, proving libel is difficult. A contractor would accept to establish that whatever was said about him and his business organization was false and slanderous, not merely a complaint.
In response to the Virginia trial, Yelp's senior litigation director, Aaron Schur, wrote, "Litigation is not a skilful substitute for client service. Businesses that try to sue their customers into silence rarely prevail, terminate up wasting their own time and money, and normally bring additional, unwanted attention to the original criticism."
Not only that, but, "who'd desire to hire a contractor with a reputation for suing his customers?" questions attorney Paul Levy.
Yet, even the threat of litigation is a powerful pick for contractors. When a Toronto couple posted a 2,000-word negative review near their $400 home improvement project, their contractor threatened litigation unless the review was removed. Intimidated, the couple revised their review to a mere 30 mild words.
How to Write a Practiced Negative Review
When it comes to posting negative comments, there's a good way and a non-so-good mode. Here are guidelines for writing critical online comments that assist readers empathize the problem, and help the offending party (your contractor) meliorate its services.
Take a deep breath earlier posting. Vitriol and anger have a way of backfiring.
Avert hurtful words: thief, liar, crook, rip-off artist, stupid wiggle.
Document your concerns with facts. For example, if your contractor was habitually tardily, note how many times the crew failed to show up on time and how many days you estimate your projection lost due to absences.
Without specific documentation, present whatsoever specific bug equally your opinion. For instance, if you didn't come across them do information technology, don't say, "They damaged our siding while unloading their truck." You can, withal, make your point past stating information technology as an opinion: "I believe our siding was damaged when they unloaded their truck." Those qualifiers -- it looked to me; it felt as if -- help establish your comments every bit personal stance and help put you on safe legal basis.
Keep your comments short and to the point. Remember that you're talking to peers who want to be informed and who probably will dismiss a rant equally too farthermost to exist trusted.
Can Y'all Trust Reviews?
Online reviews take been a benefaction for homeowners, allowing u.s. to assemble firsthand info on every subject, from covering contractors to lightbulbs. A 2013 consumer survey by BrightLocal says that 79% of consumers trust online reviews.
And 58% of respondents to a written report by Dimensional Research say they're "more likely to tell others about their customer service experiences today than they were five years ago."
Merely not all is calm in review-land. There are concerns that online reviews are too easily tainted, such as:
- Positive reviews posted anonymously by a visitor's own employees
- Clandestine reviewers-for-rent who'll mail five-star accolades for money
- Companies that effort to undermine competitors with fabricated negative reviews
Opinions vary on whether review sites do enough to ferret out simulated reviews. Amazon, Angie's Listing, and Yelp insist they do. Afterwards all, it's in their own all-time interests to have trustworthy reputations.
Angie's List, for case, has an engineering group that randomly selects reviews for assay and runs algorithms specifically designed to identify suspicious patterns.
"Overall, I practise think entities similar Yelp provide useful value for consumers," says Levy. "I'd hate to run across people deterred from participating in them."
Contributing insightful, fair, honest reviews is a service to your fellow consumers.
How to Read a Review
Sorting out fact from fluff takes due diligence. As a reader of reviews, effort to become the large pic earlier letting negative (or positive) reviews influence your decisions.
Become opinions from multiple online review sources -- not just one.
Exist wary of extremes. The worst contractor alive; the best experience of my life.
Balance the skilful and bad. Don't let a small number of bad reviews overshadow the positive. With negative reviews, check to run into if the contractor has followed upward and attempted to appease his critics.
Related: How to Fight Back Confronting a Bad Contractor
Source: https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/budgeting-contracting/write-a-review-on-a-business-you-might-get-sued/
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