Contractor not willing to finish promised work without more payment

Hi everyone

I recently got access to my flat that I had purchased a while back. We wanted to get some basic things done before moving in so decided to check with some contractors and interior designers. After going through a few of them, we decided to go with one guy. He gave us good rates for all the work (compared to quotations from other contractors) so we decided to start work.

He had initially promised to get all the work done in a month and a half so we were fine by that. He started with the kitchen, installing a sliding glass door in the hall balcony and a basin cabinet. We liked the work he was doing with the kitchen so subsequently also discussed and gave him work for adding mica to the doors, working on 2 wardrobes, a tv cabinet and false ceiling.

After he finished the door mica work, we noticed that he did not add the mica to the edges of the doors and only to the sides. We told him to fix that and he agreed to do that. With the kitchen, everything went well. I showed him the kind of handle I wanted from the get go and he said he will find and add that. After the kitchen work was done, he had not added the handles and when asked he said that it was because he wasn't able to find the right one according to my preference. He then showed me some designs and I selected one. He said that that one will take about a month to arrive and he has placed the order. I agreed as there were other work going on.

In the meantime, he installed the sliding glass door but it was attached slanted and there were a lot of gaps. He said he will fix the gaps by plastering and fix the slant.

In the meantime, he had started work on both wardrobes and he screwed up the design of one of the wardrobes (we discussed the design before he started and explained everything to him, gave him an exact image of the wardrobe and he was confident to get it done). At that point, I asked him to stop that work as we did not think he was going to be able to get it done. He offered to re-use the materials at a different project and we agreed.

After that, we discussed and asked him to do the false ceiling work, showed him designs, explained everything and he went ahead with the work but he built an entirely different design. When we saw that, we complained about it to him and he said that he could not do anything about it. He tried doing some fixes (like removing a lower part of the false ceiling) but it did not fix the design. We made our peace with it and decided to let it go.

Fast forward to now, the total decided upon price of the work is 194.5k INR and I have paid him 161k INR so far.

He is 100% done with the TV cabinet (worth 5k) only.

Things that he has done partially so far are:

• Kitchen (handles are not fixed. He tricked me and brought some cheap looking handles and installed them. Also screwed the drawers etc while doing that. I asked him to install profiles instead as it was his fault).
• Basin cabinet (He has only finished the cabinet and not installed a mirror and the tiles behind the cabinet that was decided upon)
• Sliding glass door (it is still slanted and plaster is not done)
• Door mica: (all the edges remain to be worked on)
• Wardrobe: (Mica work is done but glass doors installation is not done).

I have 33.5k remaining from the total amount in my hold and now he is threatening me asking me for the remaining payment or else he will take back the things from the flat. I have told him that I will clear the remaining payment to him once he finishes all the work. After that he asked me to give him 18k and he will finish everything except the door mica edges for which he is saying he will need extra payment.

I don't have a written agreement of the work with him but most of the discussions were done through chat (Whatsapp). Also, all the payments were made through UPI and nothing was made through cash.

I would like some advice as to what I should do next.

Should I go after him for threatening me and not finishing the promised work? Should I just let it go and try to finish the remaining work on my own (by directly hiring a carpenter etc)?