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I have read a bunch lately about abandoned pools in California. Most of those articles related to foreclosed homes that no one was living in. This story tells about how it is not only the homeowners bailing on their pools, it is also some builders.

This is important to consider. Although your builder might seem perfectly stable, things happen. In this economy, a lawsuit, a missed payment from one customer, or a whole host of other things could send a builder into financial disaster.

So, what do you do?

Good question. No matter what you do, you may not be able to fully protect yourself but should take as many precautions as possible.

Here are a few things to consider for this situation:

Make sure you are not maxed out. If you are buying a $30,000 pool and only have $30,000, you could be putting yourself into a bind. With any construction project, it is always recommended that you have a percentage of the budget put away for incidentals and unforeseen emergencies (and pools tend to have unforeseens in general). In this economy, you should have enough put away in case your builder goes under and you have to go it on your own. You may want to add potential legal fees into this equation as well.

Fully vet the builder. There are new companies popping up everywhere right now and there are still those that have been around for years. You have to do your homework on these guys. Where are they financially? How are current customers being treated? And so on. Don't just take the word of the salesman, look up as much as you can on them. Remember, a salesman is never going to say things are bad, they will just spin it to a positive. For example, if you ask them how business is (and their sales are a 1/4 of where they should be at that time), they will say business is better than they had projected. See the spin? They avoided answering your question because salesmen are never supposed to downplay their business.

Check up with current customers who are in the middle of their projects. Keep in touch with them. The company abandoning their project can be an indicator of what will happen to you.

Renegotiate the payment terms of the contract. The builders need cash flow. Getting big deposits and upfront payments may be keeping them afloat. Although that may be business as usual, it is not your job to finance their operations. The builders will fight you tooth and nail on this but if they want your business, they will have to compromise. Your objective should be to have exactly what you have paid for in your backyard. In other words, you don't want to have 25% of the product installed and have paid for 95% of it.

Some builders will get your money and put you on the back burner as they rush to get others to a payment phase to collect cash. This is actually pretty commonplace even when the economy is good. It goes back to cash flow. This situation, particularly right now, is how they get themselves into trouble.

Pay attention to what they are doing back there. Are you getting what you paid for or are they cutting corners? The builders are trying to find any way possible to make more money right now. Make sure that it isn't going on in your yard. See the article Trusting Your Builder To Do The Right Thing. Although that situation may not be a result of cutting corners and could just be negligence or inexperience, it is why you need to watch what is going on.

Don't fret. The good news is that the builders want to get your money and get out of your yard as quickly as possible. That can mean shorter building times than usual.