Dirks Design Build

Review: I signed a home renovation contract with Dirks Design Build in December of 2013. I was very pleased with the company and they had been recommended to me by a colleague of theirs. After a very slow start, work began in February of 2013. Our contract was for 120 days. The subcontractors arrived to begin demo and almost immediately things began to go wrong. Nothing serious or worth noting, except that there no representative from Dirks ever checked in on the subs and I constantly had to call, email and text to get the subs to my home. When they did arrive, they were not the subs advertised, they had never been instructed on the details of the project, there was no quality control and I rarely received any communication from Dirks. Once the framing portion of the job began, things took a turn for the worse. The framers received no instruction from Dirks. They framed an entire floor incorrectly, left walls crooked, tore down walls that should have remained and put up walls that were not required. There were numerous mistakes with the mechanical process too (gas lines ran to an electric stove, electric lines and electric panel in the wrong location, water lines placed in the way of vent stacks, etc). By the end of the contract date we had not even neared completion of the mechanical and the framing still needed to be fixed. Dirks never once called me and instead I had to constantly call them, often from the house, and many times in order to get a response.

Then the worst part happened. The work stopped and items I had been told were ordered (materials, skylights, doors, paint, HVAC, Water heater, etc) never arrived. I found out from the subs that they had never been paid. I had been dutifully paying my milestones (never waiting more than 12hrs to pay by wire) and almost NONE of the money was going to my project. To date, I have paid over $130,000 for the project and less than $10,000 was paid by Dirks. Dirks now owes me and my subcontractors a total of more than $120,000. But they have no money. All along Dirks never informed me that they had run out of money and they took my payments and used them to pay their debts on other projects. For example, I paid in full $40,000 for a new HVAC system. The sub contractor installed the duct work but was never paid by Dirks. As a result, they refused to return until I personally paid them $28,000. I'm now stuck and I have no money to finish the house (because I paid Dirks as required) but Dirks only ran up more debt that I am now saddled with. Finishing my house will cost me approximately $70,000 by either double paying Dirks or finding a new contractor (also requiring me to double pay). Dirks has no money and is completely underwater in debt. The owner, Stephen Dirks, personally owes me $32,000 and promised that if I paid that money I would get it back by Friday, August 1, 2014 (we have an additional separate contract for this) and he still has not paid. I had to hire a lawyer and I am considering filing a criminal complaint because Mr. Dirks clearly accepted my money in exchange for service which he clearly knew he had no ability to provide or the means to pay me back. I am afraid Mr. Dirks will dupe others into signing contracts with him in an effort to get their down payments when he cannot possibly perform any service for them. Overall, the contract was violated, the service is abhorrent, the quality is not just poor - it's wrong, and Mr. Dirks may well be responsible for committing fraud.Desired Settlement: Mr. Dirks should immediately refund me the cost of all outstanding debts and the cost of repairing the problems that persist. I am angry about what he has done to me, but I am not looking for retribution. I do not want his money and I don't need the entire contract refunded or restitution for the secondary financial burdens he has cost me. I only want enough money to finish my house and finish it properly. I need a place to live.