You paid a $15,000 deposit for a kitchen renovation. The contractor showed up for three weeks, tore out your old cabinets, demolished half a wall — and then stopped answering the phone. Or maybe the job got finished, but the tile is lifting and the contractor won't come back to fix it. Either way you are out real money, and the math on suing over a $15,000 dispute looks terrible once you've priced out a lawyer, a filing fee, and a year of your life. Most New York City homeown

You hired a contractor to redo the kitchen and two bathrooms in your Astoria two-family. The price was 30% below the other bids; the guy seemed professional, and you wired a $45,000 deposit the day you signed. Three months in, the work is half-finished, the cabinets you paid for never arrived, and you've just discovered the contractor has no New York City home improvement license. Now he's threatening to sue you for the balance. If you've hired an unlicensed home improvement

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