I'd like to thank Sid for his honest (and in our experience, completely accurate) review. We too had the gross misfortune to work with Charlie Brown and his wife on what was to be extensive renovation work on our home. If you look at Charlie Brown's portfolio as they invite you to do in their disingenuous response to Sid, you won't see any photos of our place. That's because after they got all their money out of the project (the rest was hard costs), they announced to us that they no longer would work here and they left with the job about 40% done. In fact, we had to hire another crew to fix the mess that had been made. According to the other contractors the list of deficiencies was enormous: the electricals had been done incorrectly and in fact constituted a fire hazard, plumbing was installed incorrectly and represented a flooding hazard, all wall surfaces were not level, even the taping plastering had to be redone because it was buckling and bubbling. Ultimately, just about everything had to be removed and fixed. It should be noted that Charlie was also trying to get away with not removing the 30 year old insulation and once the walls were removed after he left us in the lurch, we discovered that he had still left old mould infested insulation in the walls (clearly a health hazard).
However, Brown & Brown were very, very good at one thing. In fact, we would give them a perfect '10' for questionable billing as well as demanding payment and collecting money before the work is done. The Browns aggressively insisted that we cough up the entire amount owing with only 10% holdback. In other words, they wanted 90% of the payment for the job before the wall tiles had been bought and installed, the floor bought and laid, or before the room had been painted, the vanity installed, the shower door ordered and installed, the toilet purchased and hooked up or the lights as well. We were shocked to discover that we had been invoiced for $600 to remove a few nails and that the 10% holdback had been calculated on the last progress payment as opposed to the whole job which is standard procedure.
Given their history, we are certain that Mr. and Mrs. Brown will try and act like teflon and blame us for their professional shortcomings as they did with Sid. Can it really be a coincidence that there are two reviews in short order that are so damning?
- Approximate cost of services:
- $11,500.00
- Company Response
In response to the “Cabbagetown Homeowner” I think it’s important to consider that not every contractor and designer is the best fit for each project and homeowner. There were numerous red flags leading up to the demise of this project. I think we need to consider that in this particular case, it was in everyones best interest to end our buisness relationship.
To protect ourselves as small business owners, we have a contract clearly outlining our payment schedule and design scope of work signed by our clients prior to any work commencing.
Cabbagetown reviewed and signed this agreement without question.
Although the design scope of work is covered in our agreement, and was clearly explained in our initial consultation with these clients, expectations and demands far outside the scope agreed upon were demanded by the client. This client became verbally aggressive in numerous conversations with Caroline trying to outline his expectations of what the scope of design work should be, instead of what was agreed upon.Despite numerous attempts to appease these clients, we simply felt this project was not a good fit for us, and notified the client accordingly.
At the termination of this project, we received a total of $6000 of the $12,000 estimated to renovate the client’s basement bathroom. A loose loose situation for both parties as we had more money invested and their project was not completed on time.We understand how upsetting it can be to have your contractor cease a project before its completion. However, we simply did not feel safe moving forward any further than half way. And we still feel it was the right decision for us and our company.