What would you do?

[TheFarmerMommy]

I need some advice

Last summer I made an acquaintance when I was selling some cows. S. is from a multi-generation farm family. Seemed nice enough, but sort of unfocused. My age, but never had a job beyond sort of hustling livestock and horses. He had a herd of longhorn . I was looking for longhorn, and eventually agreed to buy a couple on the promise that he would help me build an electric fence on the pasture I wanted to graze. I paid. then he wanted to bring the cows over on an afternoon I was at work and put them in a field with a physical fence. I had some horses boarded out there and didn't want the possibility of a fight when I wasn't there to separate animals. I told him to wait til later in the week when we got the electric fence up. The fence got put off and put off, but I didn't' think much of it because farm folk are busy in the summer.

About this time, he volunteered to build a mobile chicken coop for me. He bought the materials and got off to a pretty good start on it. Asked me to pay him for the materials, plus a couple hundred for fuel and labor. I paid, with the verbal understanding that the coop would be finished in two weeks. And then.....nothing.

Cows finally arrived in October. Fence was still non-existent, so they went in my front pen. I expressed doubts that they were bred. He offered to bring a clean up bull. And would I like a young heifer? Cheap because she was small. He'd take the money later when I had it. Heifer got ill and died within 3 weeks. Vet wondered if the other cattle had kept her from the food. I didn't think so because I unroll round bales, etc. but I chalked it up to bad luck.

Fence finally got finished when a landscaper I'd hired pounded the t posts and I finished running the wire. I ask about the coop a couple times since it's been months. He tells me basically to stop rushing him. He brings the store bought shed portion over, but the home made trailer base isn't welded yet. I asked him to clarify, welding should have consisted of lengthening two axles. Apparently, he's decided to weld an entire frame. His friend (who I've gone out with a couple times) tells me that he and a third guy started on the welding because S. Hasn't. Okay.....S calls, needs $300 for the third guy who did the welding. I object to him spending my money without consulting me. I show a friend who's an industrial welder a picture of the frame. He laughs and tells me that would have taken a good mobile welder an hour to set up and an hour of work. For about $140. I'm steamed that he's asking for more money for labor when I already paid him back in August. I finally take a look at the darn thing and the idiot has welded flimsy metal cleats to the metal frame to screw on the wooden floor base. No way in heck will it withstand shearing forces from a good wind.


About this time, I'm getting desperate to sell my last horse because I can't afford to feed horses plus cows much longer. He'd had EPM but is still up for light duty. Great pulling horse, handsome as heck, and best disposition ever. S calls and asks to buy him. I figure he can show the horse better than I can because he owns harness and wagons. I sell him the horse at a very competitive price since I need the $&(() money after paying the welding guy. He gets excited when he hears how much I can sell hogs for through my farm to table business. I have 4 that he bought me already and was never around to take the money to pay him back. He brings over three more. I tell him I'm not paying him until they sell. He's happy with that.

A couple weeks later, he's going to a horse sale and needs traveling money. Can I pay him ? I reiterate that I'm not paying for the hogs til I sell them. Can I pay him for the dead heifer then? It annoys me since I'd told him the heifer wasn't doing well and I wanted to switch her out. A week later she was dead. But I figured he was technically in the right and I paid. Still no coop, 6 months after I told him I needed it. I sold the store bought shed portion in an effort to recoup some costs.

I had two horses that belonged to a couple I worked for sort of dumped at my place. They were acting dodgy about getting them. S asks to buy them. He can re-back them and sell them as trail or schooling horses. I arrange the deal. That was two Fridays ago. That Sunday, I get an irate email from the woman I'd bought my horse from. There's a draft on a rescue site that got pulled from the kill buyer's trailer at New Holland in the nick of time. I get on their site. Sure enough, there's my horse. Still wearing the halter he left my place in. I hit the roof. I text S and ask him wth happened. And did he take the other two horses to the sale? "Oops" he texts. I reply that he is never to contact me again or show his face on my property. He makes some noise about bringing the useless base for the coop over and can I send his hog money? A week later, another one of the cows I bought from him dies from mastitis. Vet advises me that she's had it before, as her teats are blocked with scar tissue. S manages to call despite my having blocked him whining about the coop base and the hog money. I hang up on him.

Sorry to be so long winded, but I wanted to get as accurate a background set out as possible. My dilemma: as far as I am concerned, he never delivered on goods paid for. The coop base is of no use to me and is not what I paid for. It can't even be repurposed as a trailer because the genius made it too wide. I've never seen the receipts for materials. I am inclined to argue that he owns it, and the hogs are repayment.

So, what would you do if you were me? He's proven that he's a cheat and used me as a dumping ground for his problem stock. And I never got my coop. I'm not inclined to pay him another dime. I may consult a lawyer on the legality of using the hogs' value as payment in kind. The amount is about $1500.

[unregistered41671]

I would tell him,

Adios, sayounara, goodbye and don't let the gate hit you in the butt.

IMO, you don't owe him a thing. If he says the hogs belong to him, just tell him to pick them up while you are there and not come back.

[Rjw2000]

Is your homestead called Green Acres, and his name is Mr. Haney?

Quit doing business with the guy, and make a quick call to a lawyer to find out where you stand in your own state.

[unregistered353870]

I'd pay him for the hogs just to wash my hands of him, even if I didn't feel like I owed him another dime. Otherwise he's going to keep popping up wanting "his" money. Sometimes you have to take a loss when you get into bad business arrangements...and you did, on several different deals. On the coop, I'd tell him it's his and I'm not paying any more for it. And I would re-emphasize that he is never welcome on the property again.

[Patchouli]

I don't think you owe him a dime. If he had done that to my horse he would have gotten such an earful he would know better than to ever contact me again. He played you pretty good and now you just need to let him know he won't be getting anything else from you.

[billinwv]

Lock the gate.

[Forcast]

Take his hogs back and let them loose in his kitchen when he is at a horse sale. Just leave a sweet note Sorry I missed you, not sure where you wanted the hogs so I put them in a nice safe place. Hope it's Ok.

[Harry Chickpea]

First, I wouldn't be you. I wouldn't have gotten in that deep.
Second, you don't need to be buying and selling animals on your own. By your own admission, your skill at it just isn't there. Get second opinions before spending the money. Someone wants to sell you something - pay the vet for an opinion and have them take it there first.
Third, the guy is an abusive something I can't say on this forum, and best handled by two bikers behind a woodshed.

You can spend more money on an attorney and take care of it that way or you can put your big girl pants on and do what needed to be done long ago.

[Big Dave]

How far along are the hogs? Feed rent on the place you are keeping them is what you may ask the lawyer about. Oral contracts are hard to enforce. Seems like you have made several deals with the devil here. Cut your losses He is not your friend. He has found a mark and it is you.

[Fennick]

Sure enough, there's my horse. Still wearing the halter he left my place in. I hit the roof. I text S and ask him wth happened. And did he take the other two horses to the sale? "Oops" he texts.

So what happened to the other two horses? And did he pay you what they were worth to you?

[Whisperwindkat]

Tell him to come and get the coop it is his payment for the hogs and then cut all ties with this man. That should have been done a long time ago. You don't owe him any more money. You have already paid him for the hogs with the money given to him for the chicken coop that you do not have. Rule of thumb for selling horses that you don't want to wind up with a kill buyer....price them above kill buyer prices.

[Wolf mom]

GO see an atty. Do NOT speak to him until you do. Do not do anything else. He might place a mechanic's lien against your property.

A mechanic's lien is a security interest in the title to property for the benefit of those who have supplied labor or materials that improve the property. The lien exists for both real property and personal property.

[tamarackreg]

Buh-bye!

[rambler]

If anyone (other fella) wants to push something, there are many, many legal issues going on here.

You have set up a pattern of allowing him to. Not meet his obligations. In. Theory you would need to sue him for each individual deal to 'settle up' legally.

If he would choose to, he can do the same to you.

While it makes sense to me; and is somewhat logical to say this bad debt equals that other deal over there, and you are trading some hogs and lumber and horses and calling it even and walking away 'even'.......

It does -not- work that way in a court of law.

Each deal is looked at individually, and settled individually.

So he can owe you for 10 different deals you made and went bad; but you still owe him for the one deal you made the other way. You are still on the hook to settle up the deal you made where you owe him.

Clearly you went far, far too deep with this fella, you shoulda cut ties with him several deals ago.

Try to clean things up as best you can, get signatures for any money that changes hands 'paid in full', and move on. Consider it the cost of an education. By not getting the hogs settle, you are leaving an open debt on your side hanging.... That could come back to bite you. Accepting the pile of wood is likely the best you will ever get out of him, not right, not honest, not fair, but you have repeatedly done business with him after he proved he can't be trusted. That's more your fault than his by now.......

Lesson learned, not everyone is honest. In fact, it sounds like he is in that common group of folk, intends to be honest but just doesn't know his way, he's lost. From his point of view, he thinks he is trying and means well, he doesn't realize what a crook he is. A common human trait you will run into over and over. Makes it more frustrating mostly, when a dishonest crook steals from you at least its a real bad guy; here its just a sad sack.

Get settled up as best you can as soon as you can, and get away from him. He will continue to drag you down.

Paul

[Callieslamb]

You need to pay S for the pigs. Or do another verbal of not taking him to court for the other things in trade for the pigs. Then never speak to him again. Never.

You probably know it, but you should have stopped with him when he didn't immediately put up the fence. Lesson learned. Get him off your back and move on with your life.

[TheFarmerMommy]

[QUOTE=rambler;

Lesson learned, not everyone is honest. In fact, it sounds like he is in that common group of folk, intends to be honest but just doesn't know his way, he's lost. From his point of view, he thinks he is trying and means well, he doesn't realize what a crook he is. A common human trait you will run into over and over. Makes it more frustrating mostly, when a dishonest crook steals from you at least its a real bad guy; here its just a sad sack.

Get settled up as best you can as soon as you can, and get away from him. He will continue to drag you down.

Paul[/QUOTE]

This. He did follow through on enough that each incident I wrote about made me pause and think "Hmmmm, did what I think happened just happen?" Hog fence got done before I asked, oil changed on my truck at cost, etc.

To clarify a few things:

-The coop base isn't in my possession. I don't want it in my possession. Would
make it harder to make my claim in court if it comes to that.

-He paid the owner of the other horses the amount they agreed upon. (I'm actually not too worried there. They were taking advantage, too. When you own a boarding farm with 20 stalls and someone taking care of horses for you basically for free tells you they can no longer do so, the proper response is not "I don't have room and I don't have a traaaaaailer")

-Hogs are about 300 pounds. I intend to slaughter or send to the sale in the next week.

Reading these responses, it occurred to me that it might be better to tell him to get the hogs, but invoice for feed and board. He'd end up owing me.

[mnn2501]

Do not have anymore dealings with this guy and do NOT give him any money. Tell him to stop bothering you.
Do you by any chance have any receipts for the money you gave him? if not chalk it up to the college of hard knocks.

[||Downhome||]

He is what My ancestors term a Horse Trader, they always seek the better of the deal, yet some are downright Unscrupulous.

I agree stay away,he got away numerous times taking advantage, you have become a mark.

I would demand what I paid for or be reimbursed, money from the Hogs can come out of that, but if he demanded pay for a animal he bought dieing yet brought you sick animals well isn't fair fair?

You have a Man you can Involve in this?
I'd be happy to help, though you probably are a long way from me.
Though I'm sure someone else as capable is nearby.

[unregistered353870]

Reading these responses, it occurred to me that it might be better to tell him to get the hogs, but invoice for feed and board. He'd end up owing me.

You can't change a deal after it's been made unless he agrees to the change. This isn't the deal you made with him. You could do it just to get him out of your life, but don't expect to get a dime out of him. Just write it off as a loss.

[TheFarmerMommy]

Sure. But he's trying to change the deal by collecting on them before I've sold them.