Improve The Contract Before Your Home

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Maybe it is a necessity, or vanity, or maybe it is just those opportune interest rates. Whatever the driving force behind your decision, the choice to make home improvements should not be

taken lightly.

Of course, an attorney will always advise that you have an attorney. There are numerous issues, potential pitfalls and other details that a lawyer is accustomed to dealing with that the sometimes unwary homeowner is not.

Taking on the task of supervising the improvement on your own as the homeowner is not a horrible idea, and definitely not uncommon. Perhaps the ordeal is nothing you have not been through before. You have learned the safeguards, and you will not make the same mistakes twice. There is also the belief that most of these things finish without a hitch.

Remember this: there is a first time for everything. The “everything” referred to is the seemingly increasing sour situations - bad work, delayed work, unpaid subcontractors, and the list goes on. These types of unpleasantries appear to be spreading within the home improvement business. However, there are many of them that could have been taken care of at the contracting stage.

Before you, as a homeowner, sign a contract with a prime contractor, some general issues should have already been ironed out. A couple of these generalities include a start date and a projected date of completion. You would be surprised at how many home improvement outfits want to leave the completion “hanging.” This will usually result in much homeowner frustration as it leaves wiggle room for the contractor drag your project out much further than you thought possible. You may not see any work done for weeks after the project begins. And you may find this situation intolerable in the example of a homeowner adding rooms with intentions of caring for elderly family members.

Other potential problems that can be avoided deal with obtaining permits, what materials will be used, defining stages of completion, and the big one: how and when the homeowner will make scheduled payments. Concerning the matter of money, you have the vested interest in knowing how your money is being spent. Contractors are to keep the equivalent to a trust account that is to be used only for your project, not to fund another’s.

Bear in mind that laws exist to protect you as the homeowner, ranging from Lien Law to sections of Wisconsin’s Administrative Code dealing directly with home improvements. Further, within those sections are provisions guiding the homeowner as to what items must be included in a home improvement contract.

Home improvement projects begin and end everyday with little to no heartaches. However, do not be one of those who assumes this is always true. You can save yourself hundreds in litigation dollars. In addition, spare your family the situation where you have no choice but to terminate your contract, leaving yourself exposed to a breach-of-contract claim, even if you were justified in ending it. Take some time and put some well-thought effort into the process before you sign the dotted line.

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Social Security Disability Filing a claim for Social Security disability benefits could be one of the most important financial decisions you make in your life. However, people mistakenly view it as the "last great act of their working career." Thus, they delay in filing a claim for years, or worse, they never file a disability claim.

To delay in filing a claim, or to never file a claim could have disastrous financial consequences to you, your family, and eventually your Social Security retirement benefit. When should you file a disability claim with Social Security? Simply put, when you reasonably expect that you will be unable to work for a minimum of 12 continuous months, or you expect that your medical condition will result in death.

Thus, you do not need to wait 12 months after you last worked to file a disability claim; however, Mr. Davis recommends that you wait at least 5 months after your last day of work to file a claim. The value of your Social Security disability benefits prior to retirement age can be staggering. For example, a claimant in their mid- forties with a monthly disability benefit amount of $1,000 could easily have disability benefits worth well in excess of $250,000 if they never return to work. This amount does not include the automatic Medicare health insurance benefits one is entitled to twenty-nine (29) months following the date the Social Security Administration (SSA) finds that you became disabled.

You are eligible for Social Security disability benefits because you have worked and paid taxes most of your life! It is important to understand you are insured for disability insurance benefits by SSA if you have worked 5 of the last 10 years (the years do not need to be consecutive). In essence, you have purchased a disability policy from the federal government. You paid the premiums for this disability insurance either by paying Social Security withholding (FICA) taxes or self-employment tax.

It is also critical to understand that if you do not file a disability claim within 5 years of becoming disabled, your earnings record at SSA will not be protected for retirement. This means that every year you are disabled and do not work or pay taxes to the Social Security Administration, the agency will post "zero" earnings to your earnings record for retirement.

After several years, your failure to file a disability claim becomes a problem because SSA does not know you are disabled and it figures you simply decided to stop working. Thus, the agency will average in "all your disability years with zeroes" with the years you did work to calculate your retirement benefit.

Of course, the averaging in of so many years of zeroes to your lifetime earnings can and will have a dramatic negative impact on your monthly retirement benefit. However, when you file a claim for Social Security disability and are found disabled, your earnings record and your retirement benefit is "protected" or "frozen" during the time you are disabled. This is because SSA does not average in the zero years when calculating your retirement benefit.

The result is your retirement benefit is protected and not reduced. In fact, generally speaking, if you remain disabled to retirement age, your monthly disability benefit amount turns into your monthly retirement benefit.

Filing a claim for social security disability is an important step in protecting your financial future while you are unable to work. I encourage you to view it as the first step in getting back on your feet and returning to work.

The monetary benefits and health insurance you will receive from SSA will reduce your stress and allow you and your family time to recover from your illness. Your taxes paid for this disability insurance from SSA, please view it no different than life, health or automobile insurance.

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Rizzo & Dierson, S.C.

Attorneys at Law

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