Helps if there is a witness to the verbal agreement. This is where a good judge, like Judy, gets to pick the two apart and decide who is a liar. Not 100% accurate all the time, but makes for good tv. She should file for harassment to begin with, and get an order to keep him away from the property.

The last two times I've had yardwork done for me, the price always goes up as they go along. If I think they are trying to milk me out of money I tell them they can leave now without pay, or finish the job we agreed on at the price we agreed on.

Unfortunately when he completed the job and gave her a bill for $1,816, she should have asked him why he went over the amount by over double and why he did not tell her that this job was going to be more than the agreed $1000. Even when she paid him the $1000 agreed upon amount, at that time he should have pulled out the plants to cover the amount over the original $1,000.

At some point he took it upon himself to do addtl work or buy more plants w/out discussing with your friend or told her and she may have thought the amount would have been maybe a couple hundred more vs $815 more.

My suggestion is to have another landscaper come over and give an estimate based on the work performed of the prior and get it in writing. Ask this 2nd landscaper if by what your friend wanted originally if it could have been done for $1,000 or if the original landscaper should have told her that the $1000 was not reasonable for the work to be done and should have told her that most likely the cost would most likely be say for instance the $1,815 and told then before work was started.

Verbal contracts are still good and it will be up to the judge to sort out word vs word. Where did your friend get this landscaper? We use Angie's List and they have reviews of everyone out there so that you can see if they do good work or not, or if complaint can do that also. If this person was recommended by someone, call them up and ask them if any problems or if they were charged more than expected.

good luck

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