The owner Mark was very pleasant and personable during a quotation process. Promises, promises... "Not to worry" was the major idea. The contract was signed, but unfortunately it was his version of contract, where there was a scope of work and the payment amount, but not the schedule of payments. Big mistake on my part, big mistake. Once the work started, Mark started demand much more payments than the work completed. By the end of the framing and rough in he wanted more than 50% of the pay. I disputed that demand and Creation by Renovation has stopped the work immediately. My demand to refund funds proportionally for the undone work was refused. The contractor claimed I owe him and not the other way around. Now it has to be resolved through the court, where I am suing Creation by Renovation. The work had to be finished by other contractors, who noticed few big mistakes on how framing, plumbing rough in and electrical rough in were done. All those mistakes had to be fixed at extra costs for me. My basement was since than finished by other people and while doing all this work those guys were reasonable on payment terms, asking for some deposit and the rest AFTER the job was completed, not before. I also attached some photos, made immediately after Creation by Renovation has left, so the one can judge whether framing and plumbing rough in were finished or not.
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After my initial review the owner of the reviewed company posted a reply full of misleading information and personal accusations. I feel a need to address all the issues at stake again. The tactics of shifting the blame, used by the company owner is not new, as it's always his word against mine, so he might hope it will be hard for the outside world to find out who is right and who is wrong. Luckily I made photos (of which I posted 3) and video, so both the visitors of this site and the future court can see and conclude by themselves whether or not the work has been completed and at what quality.
As for the client (me) being irrational, moody and mind changing individual,- I would have published my email correspondence with the contractor, so everyone would see who is moody and irrational, but this site does not have that option yet. I just wanted to point out that in the initial review I did not use the tactics of personal accusations, but rather explained what was wrong to the project. Quite a contrast with the contractor's reply.
In essence of the issues raised by the contractor, here we go again:
1. the work was not completed.
2. some completed parts of the work had to be redone by the third party contractors due to the poor workmanship of the Creation by Renovation.
3. The invoicing was calling for much more payment then work completed on that week.
4. The client(me) was not changing his mind, but rather reacting to the mistakes noticed. As an example, the contractor would not even mark the floor with the green tape or other marking technique to show the future placing of the walls. The drawing they had were not followed exactly either.
5. I have no idea what contractor is talking about with regards to 3 different firms, including the engineer being rescued from me. I never seen an engineer in person and only talked on the phone with him twice (both calls no more than 5 minutes in total) during which times we both were mutually pleasant and professional. I would like to see him in court as a witness, presenting whatever record of the phone conversation with me he might have. The only team I saw was the subcontractor's team sent by the contractor. The contractor himself will be at the site once may be twice a week the most. The subcontractor's team I met with was always dealt with professionally and courteously, though I counted some problems with them, such as them leaving for a few days at once for no apparent reasons. I am pretty sure they were doing some other projects at the same time which I was not happy about, but I would not mention anything to them directly, understanding they were not the ones who was calling shots.
5. I never went to the court with the contractors before and I fully renovated this house having about 15 contractors before this one and 5 more after, leaving five positive reviews on Home Stars before leaving this one.
This time I will trust the court into finding the true on who did what.
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Update from April 1, 2016
After my last posting I was served with the legal paperwork from Creation by Renovation asking those posts on Home Stars to be removed and for $20,000 for damages to reputation. No photos, videos, receipts or things of that nature mentioned by the contractor in his last response. My defense on the other side will include all that. I am also wondering how many more negative reviews this company would have received if people would not be afraid to go to legal battles.
If and only court decided to remove those postings I will certainly comply. Until such time the viewers can freely read and be very aware about dealing with this company.