The crew packed up and left. You walked through the rooms or around the exterior and something isn’t right. Missed spots on the ceiling. Trim that was never touched. Overspray on your windows. A wall where the old color is bleeding through the new paint. Or worse… the contractor stopped answering your calls and hasn’t been back in two weeks.
This is more common than the painting industry would like to admit. And it’s one of the most frustrating positions a homeowner can be in; you’ve paid for something, at least partially, and you don’t have what you paid for.
This article is a practical guide for navigating exactly this situation. What to do first, what options you have, what mistakes to avoid, and when you’re ready to fix it… how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
First: Understand Which Situation You’re Actually In
Not all painting problems are the same, and the right response depends on what you’re actually dealing with. There are three meaningfully different scenarios:
Step-by-Step: What to Do Right Now
Step 1: Document Everything Before You Say or Do Anything Else
Before you call the contractor, before you clean anything up, before you hire someone else; photograph and video every problem area you can identify. Close-up shots of missed spots, paint runs, sloppy cut lines, peeling areas, overspray on windows and trim, and any surfaces that weren’t touched according to the scope of work. Take wide shots that establish context and close shots that show detail. Date-stamp everything. Don’t clean up drips, wipe down overspray, or move anything until you have documentation. Once you’ve cleaned it, it’s your word against theirs.
Step 2: Pull Out Your Contract and Your Written Estimate
The written estimate and contract are your primary tools in any dispute. Go back to what was agreed in writing: what surfaces were supposed to be painted, how many coats, what prep was included, what the warranty covers, and what the payment terms are. Every legitimate complaint needs to be traceable to something in the written scope of work. If you don’t have a written contract, or if the estimate was too vague to serve as a reference; that complicates things, but it doesn’t mean you have no recourse. It just means the conversation will be harder.
Step 3: Contact the Contractor in Writing… Not Just by Phone
Send a text and email outlining the specific problems you’ve identified, referencing the contract terms, and requesting a response and a plan to address the issues. Keep the tone factual and professional, not emotional. You want a paper trail showing that you identified the problem clearly, gave the contractor an opportunity to respond, and documented their response (or non-response). Don’t negotiate the resolution verbally. If the contractor agrees to come back and fix something, get it in writing, even a text thread is better than nothing. A verbal ‘we’ll fix it’ that never happens is useless.
Step 4: Withhold Final Payment If the Job Isn’t Done or Isn’t Right
If you have not yet made your final payment (and this is why payment structures matter), do not release it until the work is complete and inspected. Final payment is your most significant piece of leverage. Once it’s gone, your options narrow considerably. Most legitimate painting warranties are not triggered until full payment is received, but that doesn’t mean you should release payment for incomplete or substandard work. If the contractor threatens to put a lien on your property over a withheld final payment, consult with an attorney before paying. Lien threats over disputed work are a pressure tactic, and there are processes for disputing them.
Step 5: Give the Contractor a Reasonable Opportunity to Make It Right
Before escalating to formal complaints or legal action, give the contractor a clear, written deadline to either respond to your concerns or return to address the work, typically 5 to 10 business days is reasonable. Most legitimate disputes get resolved at this stage. A contractor who wants to protect their reputation will usually come back. If the contractor returns and you’re not satisfied with their proposed fix, that’s the point to escalate. If they don’t respond at all, that’s also an escalation trigger. Keep records of every contact attempt.
Step 6: Escalate if Necessary, You Have More Options Than You Think
If the contractor isn’t responding or refuses to address legitimate workmanship issues, you have several escalation paths. In Colorado, you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and the Colorado Attorney General’s Consumer Protection division. If the contractor is insured, you can contact their insurance carrier directly. Small claims court in Colorado handles disputes up to $7,500 without an attorney, for larger disputes, a construction attorney consultation is worth the cost.Before escalating, get an independent assessment from another painting contractor who can document the specific deficiencies in writing. That assessment becomes your evidence.
Real Situations We’ve Been Called Into in Colorado Springs
A homeowner in the Broadmoor area hired a painter to repaint the full interior of their home before listing it for sale. The painter completed the work, collected full payment, and the homeowner discovered the next morning that every ceiling had roller marks visible in raking light, the trim in three rooms hadn’t been painted at all, and the primary bedroom had a visible lap mark running the full length of the wall. The contractor stopped responding to calls. We were brought in to assess and repaint. The full remediation cost $3,800… on top of the $4,200 the homeowner had already paid.
A homeowner in Northgate hired a painter for an exterior job. The crew painted two days, then didn’t return. The south and east elevations were done; the north and west were untouched. The contractor claimed he was waiting on the homeowner to approve a change order for ‘additional prep.’ No change order had been discussed. The homeowner still had $1,800 of the payment withheld, which gave them leverage. The contractor eventually returned and finished the job after a formal written demand.
Both situations are preventable. Both were made better or worse by whether the homeowner had a written contract, had withheld final payment, and documented the problem before taking action. Those three variables determine how much leverage you have.
Mistakes Homeowners Make That Hurt Their Position
- Paying in full before the job is inspected and accepted. Once full payment is made, your leverage is gone. The industry standard is a holdback of 10–25% until you’ve done a final walkthrough and signed off.
- Having verbal conversations instead of written ones. Every conversation about a dispute should be followed with a written summary, ‘Just to confirm what we discussed: you agreed to return by Thursday to address the ceiling in the master bedroom.’ Text is fine. Email is better.
- Hiring a second contractor to fix the problem before documenting and pursuing the first. In some cases, this can void your ability to hold the first contractor responsible, especially if a court would need to assess what work they actually did.
- Waiting too long to raise the issue. Most painting warranties have time limits. And practically speaking, the longer you wait to document a problem, the easier it is for the contractor to argue that the issue is the result of something you did or didn’t do after the job was finished.
- Getting emotional in written communications. Frustration is completely understandable, but a text message calling the contractor a scammer is a liability in any formal dispute. Keep everything factual and professional.
What to Look for in the Next Contractor You Hire
If you’re at the point of hiring someone new; either to finish an abandoned job or to fix poor workmanship, the experience you just had is useful information. Use it.
A Note on What We Do When We’re Called In to Fix Someone Else’s Work
A meaningful portion of the jobs we do at Simplify Painting involve cleaning up after another contractor… incomplete jobs, failed paint, poor prep, sloppy workmanship. We’ve seen most variations of what can go wrong.
When we’re assessing remediation work, we’re honest about what needs to happen: whether the existing paint needs to come off, whether surfaces need to be re-prepped from scratch, or whether the previous work can serve as a base with targeted repairs. We give you an itemized estimate for the remediation and explain what’s driving the cost.
We understand that you’ve already paid for this once. That reality shapes how we approach these conversations and we try to find the most efficient path to a result that actually holds up, not the most expensive one.
If you’re in Colorado Springs and dealing with a painting job that went wrong, whether it was unfinished, poorly done, or already failing… contact us here. We’ll assess the space, explain what’s needed, and provide a clear, no-pressure estimate. If it can be fixed, we’ll say so. If it needs redoing, we’ll show you exactly why and what it will cost.
We also offer free consultations for homeowners who aren’t sure whether what they’re looking at is a workmanship failure or a normal characteristic of the material. Sometimes the answer surprises people.
Simplify Painting | Colorado Springs, CO | simplifypainting.com
Licensed, insured, and local.
