Can a person be arrested for stopping payment on a check? The issue is regarding some minor handyman work that was done in my home. The stopped payment was due to a disagreement over a greatly underestimated time estimate (instead of the 2 hours I was told the work would require, it took almost 8 hours over the course of 2 days), the quality of work and some resulting property damage. I spoke with the worker about my concerns with how long he was taking while he was doing the work, but I gave the check to him anyway. I looked at the work more closely the next day when it was light out and I could see better, and I realized that there were some bigger problems and I called the company and spoke with the owner. After a phone conversation and some email correspondence, the owner told me that he would give me a nominal refund or send the worker back to fix what was fixable (and basically I would be out of luck for the item that isn't fixable). When it was clear that we were not going to agree on a resolution, I stopped the check. The owner has now threatened to call the police and have me arrested for theft of services. Can he do that?
Answer
No, the police would not pursue this. It is more of a civil contract issue, where they breached the contract by not completing the work correctlly and you breached by not paying them. This would likely be settled in a small claims court.
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