Gehrke Enterprises

I have stated the facts as I see themIt is apparent the Mr[redacted] has no intention of honoring the contracts he signed and will say what hehas to say to make that happenIf I wish to pursue this any further, it willneed to be through the court systemIt is what it is and I’m done with thisforum

I have stated the facts as I see them. It is apparent the Mr.[redacted] has no intention of honoring the contracts he signed and will say what hehas to say to make that happen. If I wish to pursue this any further, it willneed to be through the court system. It is what it is and I’m done with thisforum.

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:  Mr. Gehrke fails to realize that many of his drawings were done without the job in mind.  His initial consultation was either inadequate or he failed to follow the guidelines I provided.  The second contract was unnecessary if he would have stuck to the plans I gave him as he easily spent 10 hours on plans that never got a second look because they did not fit the model (25% larger than needed).  I understand Mr. Gehrke spent time working on this project, however, I entered into business with Mr. Gehrke to get professional drawings for my needs.  I received draft drawings of homes that were not even close to what I had described to Mr. Gehrke so I was forced to draw my own plans and hope he could convert them to a professional format which is when all of the additional billing issues arose.  If Mr. Gehrke had spent the time to better understand what I needed from the beginning, we likely could have finished the project under the original contract.In addition, Mr. Gehrke claims his fixed contract implies a fixed number of hours (24 to be exact).  This is not noted in the contract, nor was it ever described to me as such. Furthermore, in my few years working in contract law, I have never heard of someone making a representation as such - There would be no advantage for a client to pay a fixed number of hours if they will be charged hourly when the project exceeds the "allotted" hours.  If this were how Mr. Gehrke views his contract, I would expect him to keep a log and regularly present it to his client so they are aware of where they should be in the project - I was not notified that he felt he was concluding his work in the original contract until he demanded more money.  Now it seems, I am out my initial payment to Mr. Gehrke, and Mr. Gehrke feels he owed money for his time.  Mr. Gehrke will likely lose future business due to poor reviews of his business from this incident and I will have my plans delayed significantly.  On top of this, it seem we will both be out additional funds for legal counsel.  All of this out of miscommunication and all for a few hundred dollars.In an act of good faith, I would be willing to let Mr. Gehrke keep the initial retainer to cover some of his time spent on this project and would agree to refrain from discussing these issues in any further reviews/complaints if Mr. Gehrke agrees that the language in the original contract was misleading (which I already have him agreeing to in writing on email), and is the root cause for confusion/misunderstanding in his billing practices.  I would suggest we both chalk this up to simple unfortunate miscommunication, swallow some of our own pride, halve the bill and part ways amicably.  
Regards,
[redacted]

[redacted] contacted me to provide design services to create conceptual drawings for a new home. I did give him a choice to work for him by the hour at my normal billing rate of $40/hour as stated in the contract or provide him with a fixed price contract. It stands to reason that a fixed price...

contract would also mean a fixed amount of time. The contract dated September 18, 2014 was for $960 which equates to 24 billable hours and states that it would include 2 design reviews and any changes to the drawings resulting from those two design reviews. Mr. [redacted] provided me with a floor plan that he had drawn using [redacted] software. It appeared that he had spend some time researching his project and pretty well knew what he wanted so I felt that my standard contract for two design reviews with changes should get him a conceptual plan for construction estimating. This is my standard contract that I use almost 100% of the time and I cannot recall at time when this has not worked with past Clients. The only other option I offered was an hourly contract for time spent. The price of the contract does not change unless the scope of work changes. However it does not mean unending changes with the hope of finding the perfect house plan sometime in the future. Through out the coarse of this project most of our correspondence and plan reviews were via email. We only meant face to face a couple times although option to me in person was available to either of us at any time that we felt it might be necessary. Over the course of the next 5 week I provided Mr [redacted] with no less the 8 different main floor plans plus several basement plan option and numerous options to those 8 basic plan included different roof options, exterior finish options, window options, etc. At that point I had invested 34 hour on the project that should have been completed in 24 hours per the contract. I never heard for Mr [redacted] for about 5 weeks until early December when he informed me that he felt we had arrived at a final plan, I wanted to finish this project but was way over my contract time. I meant with Mr [redacted] to present an addendum to the contract asking for 10 more hours ($400) to complete this final plan with the possibility of a few minor changes. Mr [redacted] agreed to this and signed the Addendum.  He sent me a great number of changes for a supposedly "final plan" and I spend 8 hours creating this plan with elevations. I invoiced Mr [redacted] for the balance on the original contract at that time since we were now working under the Addendum. After his review there were again changes taking another 4.75 hours. After further review, again there were changes. I sent a invoice for the $400 addendum on January 20th and a price for completing the plans for permit under a separate contract per his request. I also suggested that we would need to finalize the concepts before moving forward with construction document , as I did not want to begin another contract with the possibility of additional and continuing changes. I suggested we work on an hourly basis until concepts were completed. I was not able to contact Mr. [redacted] again until mid April and had not received any payments. Final I contacted my Lawyer in April in an attempt to collect the balance due as I was running out of any other recourse. I have copies of all of our email correspondence and all for the drawing changes and option over the course of this project. In reviewing those email, I found 19 requests for changes to plans or significantly different plans. These were not simple little tweaks to the plans but major time consuming changes involving multiple drawings. I feel I have gone well beyond the contract requirements and should get paid for my time. I think Mr [redacted] has copies of all of the many plans I have created for him over the course if this project but would be happy to send him any drawings he might be missing. However I cannot continue with this project with no foreseeable ending.