O'Neill Home Renovation

We were given an estimate for our deck and surrounding stairs to be built with the option to stain it at additional cost (also quoted in the estimate). Before receiving the estimate, I showed the Mr. pictures of what I wanted and made it clear that he should check with the city to assure the job was done to code. He sent me an estimate and we spoke on the phone. I asked, does this include everything we discussed? and he assured me it did. We hired him, paid cash upfront for half of the quoted amount so he could buy materials right away and get started. He worked for two days, skipped a day due to weather, worked two more days, and then stated that he was going to need 40% more than the original estimate to complete the work. When asked why, he had asked around to contractor friends and finally heard back from the city; he said the steps around the deck were going to cost a lot more than what he originally quoted us. We explained that we were not planning to spend that much or we would have changed the design of the deck and he said he would work on the numbers to see what he could do. When he came back, the math did not make sense (I’m a teacher), but somehow he got the number down to 25% of the original quote. When I explained that if he had not planned or considered all aspects of the costs before quoting, it would be his responsibility to make up the difference (there should have been contingency factored in), he said he understood and assured us that he would make us happy. At the end of the day we helped him clean up for the weekend and we haven’t seen him since. He has not returned to finish the job even though we gave him additional money the last day to buy the materials for the stairs. Since, he has claimed he isn’t here because his daughter was in the hospital and then he asked for $800 more before he will consider doing the remaining work. He also threatened to place a lien on our property for the $800 he says we owe him for a job undone.