Sign New Jersey Electrical Services Contract Now

Document type sign electrical services contract new jersey now

hi folks and welcome to tonight's program we're so glad that you're joining us as we see folks file in i'm todd von d from the penn jersey chapter and we're excited tonight for a bit of a legal visit here with steve gets off what's in your contract as we do a bit of a legal checkup you are coming in in webinar mode which means that you can see steve you can see phil from the metro chapter and myself but we can't see you doesn't mean we don't know that you're here doesn't mean that we're not grateful that you're here for sure um we're just in this format so that we can focus on the content and the presenter if you're having any technical issues there is a chat box it's a wonderful way to get a hold of the production folks for tonight and we'll do our best to make sure that your experience and your time with us is um as seamless as possible as we get started we have a q a box there too and that's where we'll ask you to jump drop your questions in so that we can contain them all in one place again we're glad you're here i've got about two after the hour we'll get started about two or three minutes to be respectful of everybody's time thanks todd i just wanted to uh thank all the metro members that are here this evening i think they're going to get a lot out of this seminar steve has been doing this for many years and has served his advisor to many different pool companies and even manufacturers and with that we'll let you go at it thank you steve okay terrific um first of all we're gonna try to get through a lot in an hour um i've done live classes where we spend two hours in this material so i'm going to put up some slides rather quickly we're going to be able to get you copies of the powerpoints if you want them from your chapter um so don't feel like you got to start scribbling down as fast as i talk also take a moment if you want to jot down my contact information on this main slide if anyone has a question that they want to send directly to me i don't have a problem with that if anybody has more than a question that they want to talk to me about i don't have a problem with that either so i'm just going to give you another few seconds you know take a screenshot of it whatever you got my information so let's dig in um we're in a fairly challenging environment and by the way this is something i was saying a long time ago before we've had some additional challenges um we see lawsuits for injuries i have right now i'm in the middle of defending about five or six drowning cases and a couple diving cases customer disputes issues with gc and subs government investigations on occasion um consumer protection laws that were well intended but tend to sometimes go overboard i think the folks in new jersey have a particularly acute sense of that with exposures for class action and we've seen contractors prosecuted for fraud we have new and evolving safety laws and codes and standards and we have covet issues we've had directives you know telling us to stay home what we can go back and do we have federal laws about how we deal with our employees and the like and everybody's worried about what will happen if somebody at my job site or one of my customers gets it and claims they got it from me or one of my workers so i'm going to get to that in a little bit as we go through first of all a lot of the answers to your problems should be in your contracts forms if you're dealing with if you're building pools or servicing pools or renovating pools or selling products you need to have contracts that protect you a lot of the contracts that i'm asked to review and this is in pennsylvania new jersey in new york connecticut about 20 other states too i see forms that probably do predate vhs recorders and certainly predator aol um so a lot of them don't have the proper right of precision or it's not an adequate font they don't mention escrow obligations were required and virtually none address copic and typically a lot of consumers particularly those who are getting concrete pools where you don't have a liner or a fiberglass shell that comes with its own package are not getting the critical safety information they need so what are the risks well obviously we've had diving cases over the years there's been a few recently in the northeast what i see is that typically manufacturers are walking away from these cases and sometimes the builders are left holding the bed because they didn't do what the manufacturer told them to do we see drowning cases occasionally it's it's an above ground pool where people left the ladder in um it could be a residential pool where nobody was looking or public pools entrapment i think we've pretty much slayed that dragon as long as we have the right material on there occasionally if it's bad or old warming there's electrical shocks illnesses and obviously now covered and we get customer disputes and if they're not happy they take you to court or sometimes even worse they go on yelp i mean i know a lot of friends my my kids friends somebody pisses them off in the least whatever they're ordering something or buying something bringing something back whatever the first they do is they go right to yelp and every other site they can think of and a lot of times these problems can be prevented with clearer better contract forms um and that's exactly what we need to address and prevent consumer fraud claims also contracts with gc's and subs so if you're if you're getting work from a gc then make sure you review what's in their contract that they're asking you to sign on to i've worked with a number of pool contractors in pushing back against gc language and saying wait a second i understand that's your form but we've got some issues here and we go back and forth until it's good and if you're hiring subcontractors make sure that you have the right language to protect you there so the first thing we want to make sure we're not doing is violating federal laws obviously we've all heard about virginia grand banker pool and spy safety act of egb but there's also the affordable care act there's osha i'm not going to go into ada american disabilities act we've had so many classes on that we'll probably have more it's just too much to try to swallow during this short time um the telefocus or protection act the fair labor standards act which talks about minimum wage and overtime and the like and the family first recovery act and the cares act so first of all we know the vgb all suction fittings sold or installed after 2008 must comply it's the only ones you can get now so you're going to get the right covers but you got to make sure that they have the right rating so if you've got two drains the maximum system flow each cover has to have a rating that exceeds the maximum system flow and now that states like pennsylvania new jersey are adopting the international swimming pool and spa code inspectors are really paying attention to this public pools all have to be retrofitted with compliant fittings and all fittings have to be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions so the manufacturer says you need a certain sump you need a certain sump if it tells you a specific distance between this the cover and the sump as a minimum then you have to have that minimum the other thing that's very important about the vgb every suction fitting has a useful life expectancy stamped on it three years five years seven years i don't know any to go beyond that if you got covers out there that are beyond that it's not a bad idea to use that as an opportunity to reconnect with your customers and say hey you know we installed the latest and the greatest but now it's past its useful life we recommend that you let us put new covers in um okay the cares act first of all we have the payroll protection plan loans this is not a liability issue this was a bit of a benefit to a lot of people and allowed people to apply for loans which they could use to pay payroll and certain other specific expenses we did a whole webinar on that at phta which you can probably find on their website if you want more detail but the bottom line is make sure that you're using the money for the purposes permitted especially if you plan to apply for forgiveness on those amounts um the ffrca uh one of the things that requires two weeks paid sick leave at the employees regular way to pay with the employees unable to work because the employee is quarantined and this goes through the end of this year two-thirds pay of caring for a family member and quarantine the two-thirds pay of caring for a child where daycare school is closed covet must be the reason for the absence and if you got 50 or a few employees then there are exemptions um another lawyer member is osha um osha talks about as specific requirements are reporting illnesses and injuries whether it's coveted related or otherwise so there's a link here take a moment take a screenshot of it if you want you'll get the powerpoint if you wanted as well that's something to actually take a look at when you have a little bit more time osha about three or four years ago also updated their rules on silica exposure basically if you're if you're dealing with that kind of thing if you're grinding concrete for example then there are three ways that you can comply using their table using empirical data you get from your source or medical monitoring and nobody wants to have to go through that so really look at those two um basic workplace safety just remember the construction site the backyard where a job is being done is a place of work it is governed by osha and the normal precautions you have to take when around moving equipment when around heavy equipment have to be followed you don't want this especially falling into a pool now a few words about the flsa it allows for collective or class actions and it requires posting and record keeping it provides a federal minimum wage and i assume this is what everybody's making over the federal minimum wage but it also and by the way states can require a higher minimum wage localities in many states can require a higher minimum wage they can't let you get away with a lower one overtime if you work more than 40 hours per week and you're an hourly employee you get one and a half times your rate now what is included in those 40 hours um the flsa has a whole bunch of faqs on this but basically if you're making people travel from site to site that's covered that's part of their work week if they have to go to the office first and then travel to a site that's covered if they're commuting to the first place at work that day that's not covered also um there is an exception for what we call a white collar exception and that's for people who do not fit within the typical blue collar criteria so i say blue car we talked about carpenters electricians mechanics plumbers iron workers craftsmen etc people who get their hands dirty in the field are governed by the minimum wage they're not exempt who can be exempt first of all people who are on a salary basis who are making at least the figure i have up here and if it's an administrative person then that person has to have a primary duty of managing or overseeing people directing the work of at least two or more full-time employees or the equivalent and the higher fire or given significant weight in the decision to hire and fire that is the executive exemption the administrative exemption which is typically for people in the office who do dispatching and things like that is if your primary job is office or non-managerial work related to the management or general business operations and the person has a certain amount of discretion independent judgment so you got somebody in the office a couple people in the office processing bills things like that they get paid a salary that salary is equal or greater than this number that i just went back to they are exempt you don't have to pay them overtime and finally professional exemptions is typically for someone who has had some advanced field of science or learning um i don't think most of us have people like that on the payroll but the bottom line is those are the three types of salary people that you don't have to pay overtime to as long as their salary equals or exceeds the number on the screen here you have to post notice of the fsa lsa requirements at your place of work if you want to know what the post is supposed to look like go to this link they'll give you one you print it out you put it up you've complied with that particular requirement it's fairly simple i just want to talk briefly because we can spend a whole class on wage an hour i want to talk about the kinds of records you need to keep you need to have the employee's name social security number um or identifying number address zip code birth date if younger than 19 gender and occupation you have to your records must indicate what time and day of the week do that work week begin you can't keep changing it you can start the week on monday to sunday you could start a tuesday to monday but whatever it is it is that way for your hourly employees and you can't monkey around with it that's what it's going to be so you need to identify what that is you got to identify how much they're being paid during each period and if they are subject to the overtime rules how many hours they work each week the basis on which the wages are paid i.e per hour or per week what the hourly pay rate is what the weekly straight time earnings are what the overtime earnings were and any additions or deductions that you're taking from the employee's wages all of those are records you have to keep so somebody comes bringing a lawsuit or a claim you have to have that information to defend yourself um another topic i want to spend a few minutes on is employee versus independent contractor in california some of you may have read the decision in california or the new law there basically saying uber drivers and the like are now employees other states are starting to move in that direction um and in new jersey and massachusetts they go by what's called the abc test if the workers if the work the worker is performing is outside the usual course of the hires business and is engaged independently and controls their own work then it can be an independent contractor but in those states if what the worker was doing is inside the scope of the usual hires business they're an employee so if you are if you have people who are your regular crews they're employees if you have to once in a while periodically hire a fence contractor or another contractor that's where the independent contractor exception may work um another useful thing to keep in mind again probably worth a half hour on its own but a lot of people now are turning to agreements to try to protect themselves you hire people you train them you expose them to your customer base especially if they're a service company and the next thing you know they want to pick up and leave and open up next door and compete with you and there are limited things that you can do to stop that now a lot of companies are trying to get their employees to sign non-compete agreements saying basically if you leave or i fire you then you can't do this type of trade in this area for a certain amount of time and the courts are really looking at that very narrowly and saying wait is that really a legitimate need for the employer if it's somebody at the top of your company the person with the with the brilliance the design the one who has who knows all the customers the the boss the vp it might make sense for a person as part of a crew or regular person on a route it's not going to hold up what you can do however is ask all your employees to sign confidentiality agreements which prohibit them from disclosing anything that you consider to be a trade secret and the agreement would identify what you would consider to be trade secrets you could also get away with much more easily having them sign non-solicitation agreements so for example you've got a service person running a route you can have them sign an agreement saying that if they leave especially if they leave on their own then for a certain period of time say six months that's probably reasonable a year might be pushing it they can call on customers hat they service while working for you they can still open up shop next door but they got to go find their own customers or at least wait six months before they start calling on yours so all right now let's talk a little bit about consumer fruit um in most states consumer freud means false advertising um one of the most common examples if you're in a retail establishment is announcing the price after deduction and rebate saying new reduced price is x when it turns out x was always the real price in the first place and it's not really a discount so fake discounts is one of the ways that a lot of retailers get into trouble false promises or representations of material facts a misrepresentation especially in new jersey because that they're the ones whose law is probably the biggest pain in the you know what misrepresentation is a statement of fact that is untrue even if you didn't know it was untrue at the time and it covers not just company customers who buy from you but even companies that you attempt to sell to and it can also cover representations made on your website so one of the things that's good to do is every once in a while look at your website make sure whatever representations you're making are you willing to back up your contracts in new york and new jersey and i believe pennsylvania as well they have to include a three-day cancellation period reminding them of the right to cancel within three days this notice must be as you notice the font i'm using here conspicuous it's got to stand out your contract must properly identify who you are and any sales representative who is involved it has to indicate as to show that you have the minimum insurance requirements you got to close the total price including all finance charges if you're charging by the hour you've got to indicate what the hourly rate is you've got to put in a start and completion date you've got to be clear about your guarantees and warranties if you want to maintain the right to claim a lien in the event of non-payment you need to say that in your contract and your contract needs to describe the materials that are used now a lot of you're gonna say wait a second how can i promise to start the completion date there are so many things that are out of my control the answer is it's a challenge and there are things you can put into the contract that will help protect you on that and we're going to get to that in a couple minutes again these are the things that need to be in your contract as well as any contingencies that may prevent you from performing as promised and again these are the things that need to be conspicuous okay so before we come back to the contracts i'm going to i want to spend a few minutes on codes and standards this is the international swimming pool and spot code 2015 edition it is now in place and in effect in new jersey and pennsylvania if you don't have a copy of this book i strongly recommend that you reach out to your chapter to nespa or phta get a copy it's not that expensive it can be a lifesaver because when code officials are now going to look at your job this is the book that they're checking and the ansi 7 standard on entrapment is actually reprinted in the back of this book as well all of the important nuggets in the ansi 5 standard for residential pools and the nc1 for public pools are in here so again if you're building pools renovating pools in new jersey or pennsylvania this is the new bible um again this code is based on the ansi apsp now ncp hda standards and it's written in code speak again so that the inspectors know what they're looking at so what does it mean what it really means is that you as the educated builder who took this class who's a member of your chapter who bought the book when you follow the code your jobs are going to get approved when the competitor who undercuts you on price you know the idiot with the backhoe in his yard doesn't know about this and doesn't follow it his or hope pool won't get approved so i think it does what it does is it helps all of us stand out it helps us get business because when we call on customers we can say hey your state has adopted this code you know i know you're talking to some other contractors make sure if they don't show up holding a copy of this that should tell you something it separates the professionals from the unqualified this is quickly the list of um ansi aps-p standards that are in effect um the ansi 7 standard again if you buy the code that i just said it's going to be in there the nc5 standard if you're building in-ground residential pools i highly recommend it the one standard for public pools the two standard is in ground public spas the uh and i it's all up there so i'm not going to spend any more time going through each of them again and if you're working in the public sector every state new jersey pennsylvania new york and in some cases individual counties have their own public pool codes that cover design and construction and operation and maintenance okay so now let's talk about the contract because most of these problems are going to be addressed and hopefully eliminated with proper contract language the first rule in any contract when you're doing work is and this is true when i have a cut when i do a um a retention letter for some or a client and that is you need to specify what you're going to be responsible for and what you are not going to be responsible for don't assume that if it's missing from the contract it's understood that it's not your problem you may understand that you're not doing barriers but if you don't say that the contract your customer probably doesn't know that so who's doing barriers is it your responsibility or is the customer have to find somebody who's doing the backfilling who's doing the deck are you doing the gas or electric or does the customer have to hire somebody now when i say you're doing it meaning either you're doing it or hiring a sub that is your responsibility um who's doing the drainage around the area of the pool who's responsible for getting the permits who's responsible for getting to see a vote i can tell you right now i've done about 40 different contracts in the last few years and not no two contracts have the same exact answer for all six questions most of these states you have to put in a start date and a completion date but this is where you protect yourself you have to list all the things that can derail the date so when you list the start date you want somewhere in your contract to stay the start date is dependent upon a b c it's dependent upon having the permit if there's anything that stops you from getting the permit that's not your fault it's not your responsibility if other people's work has to be done before you can start um then your contract needs to say that we may be delayed because of non-contractor work and if it is then you know we add that time um also that the start date may be delayed due to unexpected conditions whether it's weather whether it's covet for example if there is an order directing you to stay home or reducing your capacity um then you need to make sure you're covered now a lot of people seem to think that by putting a general we we call a forced major clause in the contract you're covered for code unfortunately a number of courts recently have not agreed so you know right now most of the contracts i've seen they say yes we're not responsible delays caused by extreme weather hurricane act of god etc um without getting into these religious views not every court considers covet an act of god the point is i think it's a good idea to put something in your contracts or even to just if you like your form as it is to create a writer that says in addition to the following term to the attached terms and conditions we are not responsible for any delay caused by um inability to have a work group because of covet illnesses instruction you know prohibitions against doing the work etc etc so um again covert proofing your contracts you're not responsible for delays due to forced closing due to illnesses to the customer or the crew i mean if the customer test positive you don't want to be there if some of your crew tests positively may have to quarantine the whole group again don't assume it's covered by your normal act of god clause it's not in most places also if you're going to do a coded writer i would also put narrow disclaimer for liability for communication of illness meaning if you happen to get sick because and you think it's because of one of my people i'm not liable now will that disclaimer hold up i think the answer is in a number of states yes if you follow the basic guidelines in your state and if there's nothing in your state specifically then what the cdc says in other words your people are wearing masks um where when possible they're spreading out and they're staying outdoors except when they have to come in and then especially they're wearing there so if you've got four or five people on your crew hanging out together you know sit next to each other during a break with no masks on and then somebody gets sick i don't think your disclaimer's gonna hold up so but i do recommend that you look at that disclaimer if you're gonna do a coveted writer now again barriers are you responsible or is the owner responsible for finding their own fence person if they if they're responsible and they haven't gotten the barrier yet will you fill the pool you may want to say in the contract that we're not required to fill the pool unless you've got the barrier there and by the way if you delay and get the barrier there and we can't fill the pool and the pool gets damaged we're not responsible who's responsible for temporary or winter barriers um and again you want to address the impact of delay if it's not your responsibility who's choosing the location of the pool now usually i think it's a great idea to make sure somewhere in your package is a piece of paper that shows where the pool's going to be a drawing something or a description or a photograph even so let's make sure we have an agreement as to where that pool is going to be where you're going to be digging the last thing you want to do is build a beautiful pool in one spot of the yard and then find out it was supposed to be in a different spot in the yard however there can be some minor deviations so when i write up a contract i usually put in that deviations of anywhere from three six maybe even twelve inches in any horizontal direction is still still in compliance with regard to the location tolerances um you know your your contract is going to have a description of the pool with depths and et cetera et cetera but you know nothing is exact to the eighth of an inch so i think it's a good idea to put in that tolerances up to two to three inches in any dimension are not considered a violation of the contract you may even want to put your contract that minor variations of color are not a breach of the contract so where you can write in some wiggle room into your contract some safety measures it's not a bad idea now let's talk about the warranty sections in your contract you need to describe what you're warranting for example how long if it's a if if it's a concrete pool how long are you warranting the the uh the finish of the pool uh what are you warranting against typically when i do a contract for a cut for a concrete i say we warranted the pool hold water if it doesn't hold water our responsibility is to fix it to the point where it does hold water um again is that warranty transferable to a new owner some people want to say no some people want to say yes because he thinks it makes the customer more likely to do the business with them nothing wrong with that just make sure you've addressed it and you don't leave it a chance what are the remedies available in the event of a breach you want to make sure that you limit the remedy for a breach of warranty to the cost of correcting whatever went wrong you also want to make sure you exclude consequential and incidental damages in other words if there's a leak you know and then it damages things down the way you want to make sure you're not on the hook for that and this is very important everybody here installs manufactured component parts we install pumps we install filters we install heaters we install drain covers and many of us install vinyl liners or fiberglass shells i recommend that you always make sure your contract says that we do not provide any warranty for any manufactured component parts you're getting the manufacturer's warranty only and that's a pretty good warranty if you didn't think so you probably wouldn't be buying from that company so no need to put yourself on the hook for the pump or the filter or the liner or the shell leave that to an issue between the customer and the manufacturer what are the various things that the owner might do that would void a warranty for example but this warranty is void if you don't service your pool properly some people will only warrant if you use the same company to service the pool you can do that the customer may not like it they might push back but you could try that but you probably want to put in there that they must have some regular servicing and maintains of the water quality in order for you to be responsible um if the owner doesn't keep the pool full except for a brief period each year you don't want to be warranted if there's a collapse of the walls or something like that or if the pool pops for example so think of all the things that you expect the owner to do and that you and that they don't do you want to be able to get yourself off the hook on a warranty um and again when you put in disclaimers make sure it's conspicuous a lot of companies will say if you haven't finished paying me there's no warranty i can't guarantee it'll hold up every time but it's worth putting in there and if nothing else it probably increases the likelihood that they're going to remember to make that last payment um another thing we talk about in contracts is unexpected conditions and this is where you got to put your thinking caps on i'll tell you some of the conditions that have shown up when i've talked to contractors when i do their contracts and that is these are the kinds of things that can either make a project delayed or can make it more expensive or perhaps impossible unexpected hard rock unexpected soft ground lack of access to this to the site in other words also i can't get my equipment back there um obviously weather interference by owner if they get in the way or other trades i mean i'm sure many of you have experienced situations where you're not the only contractor on the backyard at the time and you're trying to get your job done in two or three days and there's somebody building a shed and there's somebody doing siding and everybody's in your way you can't get anything done so that's why i often put in that you're not responsible if your delay is caused by the presence or interference of other contractors what else spike on that list you tell me um but think about those think about the things that you tend to encounter that can screw up your start date think about the things that you might encounter that could screw up your completion date think about the things you might encounter that might screw up your ability to complete the pool at the price you quote put them all down on the list and make sure they're all addressed in your contract what standard would govern a dispute i like to go to the nc and now obviously it's phda standards or we can go to the international swimming pool and spot code in new jersey or pa because that's the that's the law um so one of the clauses i like to add is basically that any dispute unless otherwise specified in this contract any dispute as the quality workmanship dimensions etc will be resolved based on the standard and you cite the actual standard in place or the code in place that way everything that's in that standard encode including the construction tolerances and the variances are addressed if that means if you follow the code of the standard and they don't like what you did you and they call a complaint you hold up the code you say look your contract says the code will govern here's what the code says this i t at's what i did and i mean the kind of the customer may not be appeased i think often times they are but the bottom line is in that case you're holding the cards you're going to win that dispute um additional work most jurisdictions under the home improvement laws require that if you're going to do additional work you got to put it in writing along with the price with a separate signature i've had some clients that i've worked with in recent years they had they had a 15 000 job which had about six add-ons the problem is most of the add-ons didn't have written agreements it was just an email here and there nothing signed and so when the customer didn't feel like paying for some of them they weren't in a particularly good position to sue to recover so again each state has a different threshold but know what the home improvement law is in your state um and again you know if you want to talk to a lawyer in your state or someone who knows this business about a rider a simple one or two page rider that you can say okay this is a rider to the contract dated blank we've agreed to the additional work here's the price signature you fill in whatever the blanks in the form you get assigned now your additional work is in writing now if they don't want to pay you you can hold their fate to the fire okay so again this i'm going to really date myself with this with this um this is from an old box brothers movie we're basically tearing up a contract that makes absolutely no sense the bottom line is make sure your contract works for you in 2020 not in 1990 or 2000 not when you know the prior owners of the company whether it's friends or family or otherwise we're running the business and not necessarily in 2019 we're seeing things this year that we never thought we would see in our lifetime and make sure that you're satisfied that your contract works for you today okay so let's talk for a few minutes about contract with gcs and subs typically gcs they throw their form under the aia but again that's not set in stone or concrete or fiberglass or even vinyl so if you have a problem with certain terms make sure you tell them now look if they say you do it this way you sign this contract you don't get the job i'm not here to tell you don't take the job i'm just telling you look at what's in the contract look at what terms they're putting in there and what you're expected to do and make sure that you're willing to take on the job um what does the contract say about identity and insurance typically if they're the gc you're going to identify them that their contract will probably specify how much insurance you have to have make sure you have that much um and make sure that you've addressed the contingencies are necessary to timing the access i mean again if a gc is hiring you they're probably hiring more than one contractor so find out what's the timing here when do you expect me to do my work are people going to be in my way what happens if i can't get to my work or finish my work because they're on the way have that conversation and if necessary have the form amended to address it now payment schedules i should have talked about that going back to your contracts with your customers too every contract with the customer needs to have a payment schedule how much what percentage are you taking at each stage and in new jersey for example you cannot accept the final payment until the job is done so make sure you understand that so what are you getting right up front um what are you getting at each different stage make sure the stages are set forth clearly um and in new york there are certain requirements about putting that money in escrow and saying in your contract that you're gonna put it in escrow so remember that as well but even with your gcs what are the payment schedules who is supposed to be contacting the homeowner do they expect you to do it or that i want you to stay away from the homeowner and leave it to them so if a question comes up who suppo who you're supposed to ask and make sure that the agreement doesn't put you as responsible for the entire site when you're just one of the subs so again look at your contracts and again with yours now when you're hiring a subcontractor again what form are you using does that form require them to indemnify does your form require your sub to provide insurance and how much does your contract make it clear whether your sub is permitted or not permitted to end to engage with the homeowner what's the payment schedule what are their responsibilities what are your responsibilities okay now we all buy products too and we have contracts with our vendors you may say wait a second i never signed a contract with my vendor i just get an invoice well look at the back of the invoice that's your contract so when you get oh look there's a lot of things that go into deciding who you're going to buy from and on what terms and i'm not saying just to go with the one that has the best terms and conditions on the back i mean you go with price you go up the quality you go the company that has a history of standing behind their product there's a lot of things to go into but you know every once in a while just for kicks and giggles read the back of one of the invoices make sure you understand what it says and what it means even if you're not going to stop using them even if you're not going to be able to change their form at least understand what it is you're signing on to um now obviously the most important thing you want to do is make sure that if something goes wrong with a product we bought and installed that there's somebody behind me to stand behind the product and take care of it so again when you decide who to buy from make sure you're satisfied that that company is going to stand behind you if something goes wrong with their product and there are a lot of different ways that they can stand behind one is what's called a vendor's endorsement what does that mean that means that they're agreeing to put you as an additional insured on their insurance policy that means that if there's a problem with that product and there's a claim or a lawsuit their insurance policy not only defends them but defends you and since none of us like to have our own insurers spend money on our behalf that can make a big difference um if you're not getting that make sure at least that there's something in there that identifies you in the event that there's a problem a defect in the product um if not then you've left the common law remedies of indemnity and contribution which is still worth something but may not be as valuable if you're in a courtroom and again when you when you hire subs make sure they're indemnifying you you know one of the things it's a good idea to do a subcontractor is request that they have you listed as an additional insured on their policy and ask for proof of their insurance in fact i would even ask for a copy of you dealing with a new subcontractor i would even ask for a copy of their policy itself just to see that it actually is a 30 40 60 70 page piece of paper there not just a certificate um going back to being protected from your vendors this is the most important thing to remember whatever level of protection your manufacturer or or or distributor is providing to you it's only worth the nickel if you follow their instructions if you follow their instructions in the installation of their product meaning how you install it making sure all the components are delivered if they tell you to deliver written materials delivered materials they tell you to put up a sticker put up a sticker if they tell you to put something three feet apart or four feet apart whatever they tell you make sure you follow the instructions that they give you then it's on them if you don't follow the instructions it's on you and the and most of them are going to step aside and i can tell you i represent a lot of manufacturers and i've been in that unpleasant position where my client the manufacturer has a witness at a deposition and the lawyer represented the injured party says sir did this contract to follow your instructions when they installed your liner your pump your this or that and i've and i've been in situations where the person had to say no you don't want to put your manufacturer in that position okay the next thing i'm going to talk about is reviewing or creating customer safety materials now if you're installing vinyl or one piece of pools you get a pretty elaborate package with that liner or shell it's got signs it's got a manual a safety manual a lot of cases a lot of companies would also throw in some of the phda sends the way to enjoy your pool book or children aren't waterproof or things like that whatever they put in that package make sure that package gets into the hands of the owner um and preferably make sure that the owner signs off that they've gotten it now in the old days being pre-covered that meant you know wandering into their kitchen handing it to him and asking to sign a piece of paper now that we're distancing i think you might have to do a little differently but make sure you leave the package for them and then i would follow up with a call in an email saying mr or mrs customer i just want to let you know that we finished your job we left you the following safety materials on your doorstep or inside your door whatever it is i would appreciate your replying to this email to confirm that you got it okay take that reply drag save it into your customer file there's your proof okay um but now if we're doing concrete we have a different challenge normally i'd ask for a show of hands here but i'm just going to go on the assumption that at least somebody here is doing concrete in addition to vinyl or fiberglass and the bottom line is when you're doing concrete nobody's giving you all those materials you're the manufacturer of the pool basically so one of the things i strongly recommend concrete and organic manufa installers to do is to create your own safety package put together a safety manual um and and throw in some of the goodies that phta provides for very cheap price and maybe even some of the goodies that the surprise safety commission provides for nothing you still have a duty to warn and you you need to create something that's i think comparable to what the vinyl customers and fiberglass customers are getting so what goes in a safety package if you're creating one first of all a manual just like any product i buy i just bought an automatic guitar tuner it's got a manual it's like three four pages it's got an instruction book everything got an instruction book you need to provide an instruction book it's not enough just to provide the manuals for the pump the motor and the filter there needs to be a manual for the pool and i would include in that package no diving signs for the customer for an in-ground pool an above ground pool you're supposed to put them on yourself under the standard so you definitely want to make sure they're on and here's some of the things you can throw in that package they really cost very little the sense of the way to enjoy your ground swimming pool and again these are all updated after phta logo on them um so take a look at these go on the phda side or go to nestor go to the store i mean buy a but you can buy a box of them for for you know for a few bucks and the super product safety commission and you see that website they have poolsafely.gov they give they give these little brochures out for free so you want to stockpile some and stick one in each envelope it's a great idea again what goes in a manual if you're a concrete builder and you're creating your own some basic do's and don'ts around the pool you know do supervise children um do maintain the pool don't you know play around with chemicals don't um you know all the don't dive don't allow dive in the shallow end if there's no diving equipment then it's a non-diving pool um don't swim alone don't mix alcohol and and swimming all the things that you want to put in an instruction book um and probably on entrapment the one thing that i always put in the manual for entrapment when a cover is broken or missing don't use the pool call me chemical storage and handling you can go at about it two different ways a number of clients of mine simply say we don't want our customer touching chemicals we we're going to say in our contract or in our manual you shouldn't touch chemicals use a professional service provider ask for somebody else other companies figure you know what they're going to do it themselves i should provide them with some basic tips on how to do it safely um there's not a right or wrong answer there um but you should do something about it the manual should tell them about managing work quality water tr what a visibility any day you come out to use your pool and you can't see the deepest part of the water and at the bottom through the water is the day you shouldn't be letting anybody in your pool get it get somebody in there get it cleaned and then go back to using the pool electrical appliances what you should not put around the pools ground round four circuit interrupters i got that gfci backwards i apologize and again when you're storing a line or a vinyl pool are you following the instructions are you delivering to them all the safety materials and finally can you prove it and that's where the sign off comes in whether it's by email or by written piece of paper so lastly i would say that about two-thirds of consumer to business lawsuits start not because of the work or the original dispute but because somebody felt like they were being ignored their emails or their calls were not being returned so it's very important to train the people on your staff who are going to do this or yourself if you're going to do it on dispute resolution how to de-escalate how to deflate all right number one return all calls and emails especially the angry ones the angrier the email or the call the sooner you want to respond because otherwise that anger is festering every second that you delay in getting back to them if it turns out they're wrong or you're right and you have the contract language to prove it or the email between to prove it explain to them take the time to explain why it is that you're right where it's practical and it's in your interest to accommodate you can where you feel like you got to dig your head your heels in you can but at least this way you have the contract language on your side to show why you're not required to and why the why they're wrong so again you kind of have i'd rather do this than have this so to wrap up do the right thing be able to prove you did the right thing fewer legal issues more satisfied customers more satisfied dc's and sales reduce liability and probably reduce insurance premiums so with that we've set aside about seven at least 10-15 minutes here so um are there any questions so far we don't have any just yet steve all right so let's give a minute or two okay i mean that was a lot of material to cover with without a question i can tell you usually when i do this in person um i can't even get to the end because the number of times i've interrupted you know with various questions but again while we're waiting for questions to come in um i want to go back to the contract again for a moment um because this is again the code is your bible with the inspector the contract is your bible with the customer and you want to make sure that if anything goes wrong the answer is in the contract and you know a lot of people say well what should i put in there for contingencies and the answer is okay here are some of the things that i've thought about but what about you so for example some of my clients will put in that this contract assumes that i'll be able to excavate your project in one day using the following equipment or equivalent that's one way to provide a clear definition if i can't get it done within one day using that equipment then there's going to be an extra charge or this contract assumes that i'm going to have soil of a certain minimum thickness or hardness and then you can especially and then that way at least you know whether what you found is that or not another issue that i think is important to address in the contract i drainage and by that i mean your land draining water away from the pool i'll tell you a quick story i i actually was called in to help a contractor who was pursued in upstate new york and the problem was after the dr the customer got impatient waiting for backfill material so they decided the christmas side they were going to do they were going to get somebody else to do the backfill and then the customer had the land landscape to the point where water was draining into the pool rather than out of the pool um you put those two situations together you can imagine some of the problems so when the contractor was defending the claim i said well you know does your contract say you're not responsible if they do the backfill no does your contract say that it's their responsibility to make sure that the land slopes away from the pool no does your contract say that under no circumstances are you liable for more than the cost of the original contract no okay well this person's obvious has updated their contract but any of those things in the contract would have helped produce a different outcome in that case so again think of the things that might go wrong or have gone wrong and make sure that you're addressing it okay we do have a couple of questions let's go i just came through so the first one that came through is asking do you work with builders and service companies in pennsylvania or just new york pennsylvania new jersey new york connecticut maryland michigan i can keep going on perfect um and when is it acceptable to use an email or text response versus an actual signature texts are trickier because then you got to save a screenshot if i mean i'm not saying you can't do it i would much prefer to rely on email rather than a text because it's a lot easier to say if you're going to be if you're going to rely on a response by text then make sure you take a screenshot of the exchange and save it perfect um john is asking if we will get a copy of all this information uh you're going to provide the slides correct uh i think you already have jessica i sent the other day but i can resend him if you need um i do believe i have your updated version yes good feel free yes yes and phil and everyone and todd feel free to distribute it to anybody at your chapters who asked for it um one last question are there any resources that they should keep an eye on to um help with the stay up to date on the topics that you've covered and related issues yes phta.org um first of all i mean and and nespa and your chapters all right we're keeping on top of things for you so um you go to a phd page has a bunch of updates for periodically um but also remember at nespa they're constantly keeping an eye on things going on in pennsylvania new jersey connecticut and new york so if you have a question about something check with them um but again yeah that's why you're paying your dues uh all right thank you so much steve that was the last question that came through unless anyone has anything that came um last minute um i do want to remind everyone who's attending that there is a survey that will pop up on the screen as soon as your zoom window closes we would always appreciate feedback and thank you very much steve for coming on tonight and sharing with us you are welcome and again everybody store the initial slide you got my email you got my phone number um feel free to reach out okay um all right so it looks like we might call it at night i don't see any last minute um questions unless there's anything else you'd like to share with us before we call it oh again stay tuned keep up check keep checking on phd especially we have a but phd has a covet page um it provides a ton of information it gives you access to webinars and things we've posted so again take advantage of your dues and take advantage of what we have to offer fantastic the slides will be sent out to attendees tomorrow and the video will be on our websites shortly so i want to thank everyone for attending and again thank you very much steve um i want to thank metro as well for joining us in doing this joint webinar with us in penn jersey and have a great night everyone