I paid a marble contractor 1/2 deposit of $2500; he took my money, started the job work, walked off the job without returning the money. I then hired a second contractor to install marble I purchased. He installed the wall marble improperly destroying the marble I lost an additional $4280 before finding a real contractor. He had to ripe out all of the previous work and start over, he finished the job for $3500 plus I had to repurchase all the material and marble a second time. I filed a suit against the second contractor but first the sheriff, then a server processor could not locate him.
Can I deduct the loss monies for the destroyed marble, materials and contracted labor? Can the cost to file for the suit be added to the loss?
