You are three weeks into a job, the homeowner or the general contractor asked you to add work that was nowhere in the original contract, and you went ahead and did it on a verbal okay to keep the schedule moving. Now the invoice for that extra work is sitting unpaid, and the other side is telling you they never agreed to the price. A change order dispute in the middle of a project is one of the fastest ways for a job that looked profitable to turn into a money pit, and it happens to good, careful contractors across Indianapolis, Carmel, and Noblesville more often than most people realize.
The frustrating part is that these fights rarely come from bad work. They come from a gap between what got said on the jobsite and what got written down. Whether you are the one holding the unpaid invoice or the owner who feels like you are being charged for something you never approved, the situation is real, it is solvable, and how you handle the first few days often decides whether you settle it cleanly or end up in court. This post walks through what a change order dispute actually involves under Indiana law, what to do the moment one starts, and how contractors and owners in central Indiana can protect what they are owed.
What counts as a change order, and why do these fights start?
A change order is simply an agreement to modify the original contract, usually because the scope of work, the price, or the timeline has shifted. On a well-run job, it gets written down and signed by both sides before the extra work begins, so everyone knows what is being added and what it costs. When the change pushes the schedule, the disagreement can spill over into a separate fight about who is responsible for the resulting project delays, which carries its own risks and deadlines. The trouble is that real jobs move faster than paperwork, and the words “just go ahead and do it, we will square up later” have probably cost Indiana contractors more money than any other sentence in the trade.
Disputes start when that informal go-ahead runs into a different memory weeks later. The owner sees a number on the invoice that surprises them, or insists the extra work was included all along, or claims they only authorized part of what got done. Picture a remodeler redoing a kitchen in a Carmel home who gets asked mid-job to open up a wall that turns out to hide a plumbing problem nobody planned for. The crew solves it, the homeowner is grateful in the moment, and then the fix shows up as a four-figure line item and suddenly nobody remembers the conversation the same way. That gap between the handshake and the paperwork is where almost every change order dispute lives.
Do change orders have to be in writing in Indiana?
It depends on who you are working for. On commercial and business-to-business jobs, Indiana has no single statute that forces every change order into writing, so your contract controls. On home improvement work for a homeowner, Indiana’s Home Improvement Contract Act sets stricter rules, and changes generally have to be in writing and signed by the homeowner to hold up.
Take the commercial side first. Even when your contract says changes must be in writing and signed, that language is not always the last word. Indiana courts have recognized that parties can modify a written contract through their conduct, even when the agreement says modifications have to be in writing, and that whether a modification happened is usually a question of fact that turns on what both sides actually did rather than on what either side privately intended. If the two of you treated a verbal change as a real deal, kept working under it, and acted accordingly, a “must be in writing” clause does not automatically defeat your claim. The catch is that you are then betting a judge or jury will read that conduct your way, which is a far weaker spot to be in than holding a signed change order. It also helps to know that a valid change order modifies the terms it touches without erasing the rest of your contract, so the original agreement still governs everything the change did not address.
Home improvement contractors live under a tighter rule, and this is where a lot of solid contractors get tripped up. The Home Improvement Contract Act covers most improvement, repair, and remodeling work on a homeowner’s residence (it does not reach original construction of a new dwelling), and it applies once the job runs more than $150, which is to say almost always. The Act requires the contract to be in writing, and it requires changes to be put in writing and signed by the homeowner, with an unsigned change order at risk of being unenforceable under the Act. So if you replace a roof in Noblesville or finish a basement in Fishers and the homeowner verbally tells you to add work, doing it without a signed change order puts your payment for that extra work in real jeopardy. On residential jobs, the safest rule is the simplest one, which is that no signed change order means no extra work. Either way, commercial or residential, the practical answer lands in the same place, so get the change in writing and signed before you pour another dollar of labor and materials into it. A two-minute email or a signed field ticket is worth far more than your best recollection six months later.
What should you do the moment a change order dispute starts?
The first step is to pull out the contract and actually read it, because the answer to most of your questions is sitting in the document you signed. Look for the change order clause, any notice requirements (some contracts demand written notice of a claim within a set number of days), the payment terms, and any provision about how disputes get resolved. Knowing what you agreed to tells you whether you are standing on solid ground or whether you skipped a step that matters.
Next, get everything in writing right now, even if you failed to do it earlier in the job. Send a clear, calm message to the other side that lays out what extra work was requested, who requested it, when, and what it costs. Pull together every scrap of documentation you have, including text messages, emails, photos, daily logs, and any signed field tickets, because a change order dispute usually turns on who can prove what was agreed. The contractor with a folder full of dated records is in a much stronger position than the one relying on memory.
Be careful about walking off the job. It feels satisfying to pull your crew when someone refuses to pay, but stopping work without proper legal grounds can put you in breach of the contract, which flips the whole dispute against you. If you believe you have a right to stop, talk to a lawyer before you do it rather than after. In most cases, the better play is to keep communicating in writing, keep performing where it is reasonable to do so, and document the disagreement carefully while you work to resolve the construction contract dispute before it hardens into something more expensive.
How do you actually get paid for the extra work?
If a clean conversation does not resolve it, Indiana law gives contractors several ways to recover money for work they performed. The first is enforcing the underlying construction contract as modified by the change, which is where your written confirmations and the parties’ conduct on the job become the heart of the case. When there is no enforceable agreement covering the extra work, Indiana also recognizes recovery under a theory often called unjust enrichment, which lets you seek the reasonable value of the labor and materials you provided when it would be unfair to let the other side keep the benefit without paying for it.
The most powerful tool for many contractors is the mechanic’s lien, which puts a claim against the property itself and gets a property owner’s attention fast. The deadlines are short and unforgiving, so this is where waiting too long can cost you everything. In Indiana, the lien generally must be recorded within 60 days of your last day of work or materials on a residential project, and within 90 days on a non-residential or commercial project, calculated from that last date you furnished labor or materials. You record it with the county recorder where the property sits, whether that is Marion County, Hamilton County, or wherever the job is, and the deadlines cannot be extended once they pass. After the lien is recorded, you generally have one year to file suit to enforce it, though a property owner can shorten that window to 30 days by sending you a formal notice to foreclose.
If you end up filing a lawsuit to collect, the size of the claim points you to the right court. For disputes of $10,000 or less, Indiana’s small claims process offers a faster, less formal, and less expensive path, and that limit applies statewide for cases filed on or after July 1, 2021. Larger amounts head to the circuit or superior court in the county where the dispute belongs. Knowing which door you are walking through, and hitting the lien deadline before it slams shut, often matters more than the strength of your underlying argument. Indiana Judicial BranchEnjuris
When should you call a lawyer about a change order dispute?
You do not need a lawyer for every disagreement over a few hundred dollars, but certain signals mean it is time to pick up the phone. Call when a mechanic’s lien deadline is bearing down, because 60 or 90 days runs out faster than you think once a job wraps and you are busy chasing the next one. Call when the dollar amount is large enough that losing it would genuinely hurt your business, or when the other side has hired counsel or started threatening to sue. If you do home improvement work and a homeowner is raising the Home Improvement Contract Act, or if your contract is loaded with terms you cannot decode such as indemnity language, liquidated damages, or a mandatory arbitration clause, getting those read before you act can save you from a costly misstep.
Owners have their own trigger points. If a contractor is demanding payment for work you are confident you never authorized, or is threatening a lien on your property, you want to understand your position before you pay or refuse. In both directions, the goal is the same, which is getting a clear read on where you stand before the dispute hardens into litigation, and working with a construction attorney early can often keep a fixable disagreement from turning into a lawsuit.
A change order dispute in the middle of a project is rarely as hopeless as it feels in the moment, but the contractors and owners who come out ahead are the ones who move early, keep good records, and get real guidance before a deadline or a misstep takes their options off the table. At Fugate Gangstad Lowe, we work with business owners and contractors across Indianapolis, Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, and the rest of central Indiana on exactly these kinds of construction and contract disputes, and we are glad to talk through where you stand and what your next move should be. Call us at 317-829-6797 or reach out through our contact form, and let’s figure out how to protect what you are owed.
The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. For legal advice tailored to your situation, please contact our firm directly.