Barry Bloom, owner of Assured Power in Milwaukee, Wis., knew something was wrong last year in the late stages of a renovation project to create a new Radisson hotel in nearby Menomonee Falls.

Four months after the soft opening, the general contractor filed a $2.8-million lien on behalf of the subcontractors. The hotel’s owners insisted that funds were still available to pay all of the subcontractors, but Bloom says he never received the last of his draws after work was done.

Bloom decided to take action after he found among the project documents a list of the other subcontractors. “I thought, it’s kind of strange I’ve never talked to these guys,” he says. “So I started calling them, one by one.”