WELCOME TO SAUER & SAUER
Attorneys
June, 2026
(Sally Sauer 1958 - 2019)
This is a lengthy homepage. But, the only readers who really need to read the whole thing are homeowners. I get my usual potential client base in and out of this homepage quickly. (I’ll tell you when it is safe to leave!) These include material and equipment suppliers, subcontractors, general contractors, sureties, and owners with regard to commercial/private and public construction projects.
I, Jonathan Sauer, am a Massachusetts construction lawyer with fifty years’ experience.
I do a lot of preparing, reviewing, negotiating, and revising a variety of construction contract documents, including the preparation of custom contracts and various lien waivers/releases. I do a lot of work with mechanic liens, payment bond claims, public bid disputes and construction disputes/litigation. I have done a lot of work with the Massachusetts public bid laws. I form corporations and limited liability companies for those in the construction industry.
There are more than one thousand pages of content on this site, consisting of “Construction Law Articles” and “Squibs”, my newsletter. Buttons for each of these two resources can be found further down this page. These cover a wide variety of construction topics. I have written this much and have taught numerous free seminars because I really want to educate and help those involved with the construction industry. This is just my nature and explains why I am still working full-time at my age.
I favor a proactive approach. Smaller problems can be handled less expensively and also can often achieve a better result than waiting until a small problem has become a larger problem, such as in getting sued. My experience has been that the larger a problem becomes, the smaller the possibilities are for a quicker, less expensive and acceptable result. People get better results when they engage a lawyer to prevent problems. Preventing -or, at least, minimizing - problems is what my goal always is.
My contact information:
Jonathan Sauer
Sauer & Sauer 15 Adrienne Rd. E. Walpole, MA 02032
(508) 668-6020
I am not a fan of voicemail. I have two different offices in two different locations, each with its own telephone number, different phone system and different service provider. I also find that I sometimes don’t get all of my phone messages, for whatever reason. I greatly prefer working with emails, which I find to be more dependable and a better way to transmit information. These days, lawyers communicate with each other largely through emails and not through telephone conversations. People are often not available when you reach out to them with a telephone call. But, you can still transmit to them your message, whether they are in the office or not, which is communicated more quickly, more accurately and more comprehensively when it is in writing.
I will be happy to discuss a problem that someone living or working in Massachusetts has, offering one ten-minute phone call without charge. I only review documents for existing clients.
If you wish to speak with me, I am usually in the office after 2 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I am generally in the office all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Existing clients (only) can call me outside of business hours, if they need to address something right away.
This concludes this homepage for material and equipment suppliers, subcontractors, general contractors, sureties and owners with regard to commercial/private and public construction projects. I hope that you find my website helpful. And, I look forward to speaking with you.
Although this is only a very small part of my practice, I get a lot of calls from Massachusetts homeowners. It’s the rare week where I don’t have at least a half-dozen homeowners calling me, wishing to discuss their home improvement contract/home improvement contractor (HIC) problems. This is, most likely, because I have written extensively on their problems and issues, much of which appears on this website. This is motivated by my concerns with how HIC often take serious advantage of homeowners. I try to teach and educate them as to how they can avoid/minimize some of these problems through some preparation on their part before signing home improvement contracts. Unfortunately, nearly all of the homeowners I speak with have not done this.
I am going to give it to you straight because you need to understand the real issues before you embark on a course of (hopefully) resolving your HIC problems.
If you were to speak with a lawyer for the first time over the phone in your efforts to hire a lawyer, a lawyer might sugarcoat that which follows in order to get your business. I think doing so does a disservice to that homeowner. A client is entitled to a lawyer’s knowledge and experience irrespective of whether or not this is something the client wishes to hear.
That you have these problems is painful to me as a person and as a lawyer, particularly where most of these problems could have been prevented or minimized had you first read my construction law article: “Specific Strategies to Assist Massachusetts Homeowners in Getting what they are Entitled to From and Under Their Home improvement Contracts and Projects”. This is a soup to nuts explanation of the entire HIC process, taking a homeowner from their very first thought of having work done on the house through the last step necessary to complete the project.
You have most likely read this far because, unfortunately, you didn’t read ‘Specific Strategies’.
Resolving HIC issues can be difficult when the homeowner has allowed the HIC to drive the bus. First, the HIC contract is usually woefully one-sided. Neither lawyers nor the court system can or will rewrite a contract that has insufficient or unfair provisions. Secondly, in all likelihood, homeowners have made any number of serious mistakes in contract administration up to the point of reaching out for help. Thirdly, most of the more difficult cases will not be resolved without your first suing your HIC. Litigation becomes very expensive very quickly. While only one percent of all superior court civil cases actually goes through a complete trial, participating in the initial steps of the court process may be necessary to resolve a problem.
If a homeowner wishes to discuss a problem with me, I ask that they first do three specific things. First, read this entire homepage. Secondly, read my construction law article “Problems and Options in 2023 for Massachusetts Homeowners With Troubled Home Improvement Projects”. Thirdly, read Scribbles Squib #63, “A SUPERIOR COURT CASE FROM BEGINNING TO END:THE LITIGATION PROCESS.”
Homeowners like to focus in on telling me their story. Their story has greater meaning after homeowners understand the content of these two articles and figure out what their realistic options are given their own situation. The content of their stories, unfortunately, contains many of the following things.
The home improvement contractor (HIC) will tell you that ‘you don’t need to hire an architect. I’ll generate construction plans for you without charge.’ Then, the HIC says that ‘you don’t need to hire a lawyer to prepare a contract. I’ll prepare one for you at no charge’.
In many cases, this is giving the fox the key to the hen house because having an architect and a lawyer looking after your interests are your best protection against unethical/poor quality HIC work and service. I find that such drawings and specifications and contracts that HICs prepare usually do not meet the legal requirements of the HIC laws and/or do not reflect good construction and contract processes. Quite frequently, they are just plain unfair.
The kinds of calls I get from homeowners often include variations of the following: “The HIC has taken my money and has not even started the project several months later”. Or: “The HIC has done shoddy work and there are all kinds of problems with that work.” Or: “The HIC will not come back and fix his problems unless I agree to give him all kinds of additional monies for claimed extra work, which work I thought was included within the contract.” Or: “He’ll no longer return my phone calls to come fix or complete his work.” Or: “I’ve paid him all or almost all of the contract monies, the job is incomplete and with defects and I don’t know what to do.” Or: “The building inspector won’t give me an occupancy permit.” Or: “I have had to rent a house to live in during the construction period. The construction period never seems to end and this rental is costing me a fortune.”
When a homeowner encounters these problems, they are not likely to be the HIC’s first victim.
Here are the brutal facts. I am a contracts lawyer and I am stuck with whatever contract the homeowner signed. If they made a bad deal, they made a bad deal. I can’t change the deal. I can’t change the history of what has happened prior to their telephone call to me. Whatever unfortunate things that they did or didn’t do remain unfortunate things going forward. Courts do not revise contracts, even those that do not meet HIC requirements. I have found that many judges are not particularly sympathetic to the problems homeowners have, especially with those who are well-educated. Apart from this, the court system has many failings and can’t resolve many problems people bring to it.
Sending the HIC a lawyer’s demand letter is usually a waste of time and money. I get any number of calls asking ‘how much will you charge to write a demand letter?’ I won’t do that because I have found that they usually don’t work and, therefore, further actions will be required. Knowing what your next step will be in your efforts to obtain justice is information that is helpful in framing the content of the demand letter.
Litigation takes forever and can be very expensive. It’s hard to imagine any kind of construction case proceeding through a superior court trial not costing in the tens of thousands of dollars of legal fees. And, much of what your lawyer will do is specifically required by an enormous number of court rules and civil procedures.
Under Massachusetts law, with two exceptions that are rarely applicable, a party is not entitled to recover their attorneys’ fees from the other side even if they win their case. This problem could have been avoided by inserting just one sentence into the HIC contract. And, I can almost guarantee that the HIC did not include that sentence in your contract.
It is a brutal fact of life that it will be the rare homeowner who will be able to afford several years of litigation. There is no complete remedy or substitute for the homeowner’s not having made sufficient efforts to educate themselves before they began this process. The HIC knows everything that is said in this paragraph and the bad ones relish each and every mistake the homeowner has made. Each such error is frosting on his cake.
Some clients can obtain ‘contingency fee lawyers’ through the Mass Bar Association’s lawyer referral program. If they are able to hire a lawyer on this basis, they will only owe an attorneys’ fee if the lawyer wins the case and actually collects some money.
I only take HIC cases on an hourly rate basis and only if I think I can accomplish something positive for the homeowner and the homeowner both understands the process and can afford the costs of this process.
The lawyer’s skill with these kinds of problems is in fashioning some kind of an acceptable solution as quickly as possible. Since both sides to the dispute will have their own thoughts and agenda, this is not always possible.
People taking advantage of the great deal of free information provided to them in my website – which I want them to do - can see that I am an experienced and sympathetic lawyer. A phenomenon, however, for one who writes or teaches as much as I have is that where homeowners start off with me on the website for free, many seem to expect to continue for free once we begin our conversations. Because I have provided such an enormous amount of information for free, like any other lawyer, I have to charge for my services. Other than the one ten-minute conversation referenced above, I don’t do any courtesy initial consultations. And, I review documents only for existing clients.
While I have provided here a lot of information that I consider to be realistic, some readers may think that my approach seems to be too pessimistic. I encourage them to check out other possible construction attorneys. Maybe they can find a lawyer who takes a different read on all of this and/or of their own situation.
Either way, my best wishes!
