Great Oak Construction Reviews (%countItem)
Great Oak Construction Rating
Address: 1150 Old State Route 74, Batavia, Ohio, United States, 45103-1502
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In November 2019, Great Oak was recommended by our insurance company to provide restoration services after our basement flooded with black water. We were given an estimate for the work they were planning to perform and agreed to have them complete the restoration. We paid a deposit of $1500 to Great Oak in December and the check cleared our bank account on 12/31/2019. On January 7th, we had to pursue Great Oak to find out when they were going to start the work since they obviously had received our payment and a contract. Two months after the date of the flood incident, they finally had a painter & drywall repair person come out to work on the basement . He assessed that there wasn't mold in the drywall or under the baseboards. He and a coworker painted the basement that day (one coat of paint in two rooms). This was actually a task that did not actually have to happen since the drywall did not have to be replaced.
By the end of January, we were beyond unhappy with how slowly things were moving along with the project and how we were constantly being told we might not have enough insurance money to cover what we needed to have done. We dissected the estimate (that was submitted to insurance) to figure out how we could be short on funds & realized that they were being dishonest about the situation. On January 31st, we requested an invoice for work completed to date. On February 4th, we received an invoice from Great Oak that had charges for services never performed by either Great Oak or their contractors. When I called to let them know that I wasn't going to pay for work that didn't happen, I was told that we would be sent another invoice. I spoke with the owner of the company, who was very rude and seemed displeased with the fact that I caught mistakes on the bill. We were sent a new invoice that evening, but it also had errors. Today, we received a third bill that has both errors and new charges for fees that we feel should not be passed on to a customer. We do not believe that we owe Great Oak the entire $1500 that was paid as a deposit for work since the only work done was unnecessary (painting a basement that did not actually need to be painted since drywall wasn't replaced). We also do not feel we should have to pay additional charges for cancelling our contract after uncovering dishonest billing practices.
We received the clients Work
Authorization by mail on 12/30/19. We
deposited her check on 12/31/19. At the
time she called to cancel, we had only had the job for 1 month and the customer
had not yet made all her selections. Without selections, we cannot complete the
project. Depending on our current
project work load, we normally begin a project within 2 - 6 weeks after
receiving a signed Work Authorization. This is fairly standard in the construction industry.
During the course of the project she asked for two changes
to the estimate. One was an upgrade to
her carpet which she ultimately declined, and later she requested an estimate
for an upgrade to her carpet pad. In my
conversation with the client, I explained that providing additional estimates take
time, but agreed that we took too long to provide the 2nd estimate
for the pad. However, I also explained that she cannot expect her whole project
to have been completed in less than a month when her final selections had not
yet been made. We do not understand the complaint about the basement not
needing to be painted. She texted her paint color selection to the Project
Manager and a screen shot of this message has been provided to her.
There were errors in the initial invoicing because she
abruptly cancelled the contract, upset that we had not finished her project,
although we did not yet have selections from her in order to complete it. We then did not have the opportunity to
return to the jobsite to see what the painter had left incomplete. The balance of painting is typically
completed after the flooring install as it is normal for baseboard and other
trim to need touch up following the flooring installation. The correct revisions were ultimately made
and Supervision/Project Management
fees were added along with a 3rd party administration fee that we
incurred based upon the full project estimate.
I agree that I did become rude
with her after she told me she ran her own business and told me that I did not
have any actual costs associated with her project. I then explained all of those costs including
travel, estimates, phone calls, texts, etc. These costs were passed along to her in the final revised invoice along
with the 3rd party administration fee we incurred. A copy of the 3rd party administration
invoice was provided to her as documentation of the cost.The revised invoice is
$2,083.75. We will agree to a $700
credit to that invoice, which results in a $116.25 refund to the customer after
applying her $1,500.00 deposit.
The following documents are being
provided as part of this response:
· Original Estimate
· Signed Work Authorization · Screen Shots of Text Messages · Copy
of the Final Invoice with Revised Estimate and 3rd Party
Administration Invoice
I have attached the estimate for the repairs that Great Oak submitted for insurance approval. I also have attached the three invoices that we received from Great Oak. I requested to terminate the contract with Great Oak because things were moving slowly, but mostly I requested to be finished because I didn’t trust that they were being honest. Doug mentioned in his email that I submitted a paint color, which is true. My husband actually submitted a paint color and a carpet/padding selection to Tony at the beginning of January. I had to submit the color again via text at Tony’s request. I submitted a paint color because they were going to repaint the walls after they replaced any moldy drywall. When the contractor pulled off the baseboard, he said that the areas did not have mold. They painted the basement anyway (most likely because they had already purchased three gallons of paint).Because of the issues that we were having with the carpet (Tony kept telling me that we might not have enough money to get the padding that I wanted) and the poor communication, I decided to go over the estimate. Based on what insurance was willing to pay, I couldn’t figure out how we didn’t have enough money to cover the carpet and padding I wanted. Therefore, I requested an invoice for the service performed so I could see where we stood with money.The first invoice included charges for MANY things that did not happen. They charged for two coats of paint when they only applied one. They charged for work on the baseboards that didn’t happen. There were also charges for spraying anti-microbial and resetting furniture, which did not happen. Tony did come out to the house briefly after the painting was done, so it isn’t true that he didn’t see the basement after it was painted. However, it seemed unlikely that Tony had worked five hours billed for the project when we saw him maybe a total of one hour and he barely reached out to contact us. (Almost all contact was initiated by us.)I was furious after opening the first invoice because there were so many false charges. I contacted Doug to discuss the problem because Tony asked me to no longer contact him. Doug kept talking about the “updated second invoice” on the phone – yet he hadn’t even sent an updated invoice to me at that point. He was very rude and unprofessional.The second invoice came after the phone call and it also had errors. It still had charges for two coats of paint instead of one. They also charged us for painting the inside of the closets, which did not happen. We still questioned how we were being charged for five hours of work too. We requested to have things corrected and to find out details on the billing for Tony’s work.The third invoice came with an added charge from a third party company, and they added Overhead & Profit to that charge too. Doug said the invoice labor total was five hours because they were charging us for drive time, every phone call made (even from people who never actually contacted us), & every response to text or email. The third invoice also includes another billing error because they charged us for having the ceiling painted. We have a tray ceiling in the basement and it definitely wasn’t painted. Because it was obvious that we were not getting anywhere with the invoicing, I decided to contact the Revdex.com.I feel like there is definitely a problem occurring with accounting and billing based on all of my invoices having errors. I do not know if they are just careless in their billing/accounting practices or if they are hoping that their customers do not take the time to look over the bill because they are paying with insurance money. Regardless, our invoices were not correct. I have spent many hours working on this and feel that my time away from my business is just as valuable as their time. I requested to have a refund of $700 because I spent many hours of my time trying to figure out their accounting errors. I also do not feel that $2083.75 is a fair charge for painting a basement that didn’t need to be painted. Finally, I hope that the Revdex.com can help make sure that Great Oak improves their billing process for future customers.Thank you,***PS. One thing to note is that we are finally having the carpet installed tomorrow and we did have enough money to cover the carpet and padding that we had originally selected.
We will agree to refund the customer $700.00. However, as previously explained, we were unable to schedule completion of the project due to the lack of a flooring selection from the customer. The balance of the work would have been scheduled and completed after she made her flooring selection. Additionally, once the customer canceled the contract, we were unable to walk through the project to determine what had and had not been completed in order to prepare an accurate invoice.
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. While I disagree with the excuses provided in the response, I am accepting the resolution.
Regards
I hired Great Oak for a full home remodel estimated to cost $78,000.00. I paid $30,000.00 for deposit and a progress draw a few months into the project. It has been nearly 12 months and I don’t even have a single room completed in its entirety. The project started in an unfished basement and in 12 months, Great Oak was still working ok the basement at the time I hired an attorney and terminated the contract. . An egress was half way installed and never completed, which will cost me thousands fix. No communication. After requesting a progress draw in April of 2018 for $10,000.00, Great Oak basically stopped showing up. I would go 4-6 weeks without hearing anything from them. They would schedule times to work and not show up and I wouldn’t hear from them for another 2-3 weeks. Terrible quality of work. Terrible experience.
Great oak should be compensated for their work. I would like a minimum of 50%, or $15,000.00, refunded to me. The reason I am asking for this much is because much of the work completed by Great Oak was less than satisfactory. Specifically, the egress that Great Oak installed will cost an estimated $1200.00 to have a drainage system installed so the dirt doesn’t come crashing into the egress window. The painting is horrific. There isn’t running water. There isn’t a toilet. Much of what was specifically listed in my estimate was not produced by Great Oak in 12 months time. I have dry wall and some LVT floors and that is not valued at the price I paid.
Please see attached letter and documentation (text of letter below).
November 16, 2018
Revdex.com Serving Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Southeast Indiana
1 E. 4th, Suite 600
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Re: Case ID
When the homeowner initially contacted us for an estimate on her remodel, we made it clear that we are a fire restoration contractor and that if she was to hire us to complete her project we would be slower than a contractor that focuses on remodeling. We explained that fire repair and damage repair claims would be given first priority. At that time she stated that if a fire happened at her home, she would want those repairs to take priority and so she understood our stance. With this information made clear, she still chose to have us prepare an estimate and subsequently signed a contract with us. She was reminded throughout the project about our priority to our restoration clients.
At the beginning of the estimating process, the homeowner was advised that we would not be able to provide an accurate estimate until she made selections so that the quality and pricing could be accurately reflected. Before selections were made, she stated “Hey I am meeting with my bank Wednesday of next week and I need some ballpark figures to go in there with. Even if you don’t have all the flooring stuff entered, will you send information that you have so I can get the ball rolling on my end?” We did as she requested. After nearly 1 1/2 years, we still have not received all of her selections for the basement alone.She was also told, prior to the project beginning, that we do not do underground drainage and that she would need to hire another contractor for that. When the demolition of the partial basement began it was discovered that the block foundation was leaking. The homeowner did hire her own contractor to address that issue. This delayed the project for almost 6 months. When we resumed work at her home, she was told to have her waterproofing contractor, which is a friend of the family, do the drain work for the egress window. It was this contractor that did not return to complete the work. We agreed to make a call to this company on her behalf, which we did, however none of our calls were returned and it is not our responsibility to pursue this. We can provide many email communications where we made requests to the homeowner for information and did not receive timely responses. It was not until the homeowner had us begin dealing directly with her fiancé that we were able to begin moving things forward.
The homeowner was told multiple times that when selections were made, we would return and stay longer on her project and that we could not continue coming to her home for an hour or two of work. That is disruptive to our overall schedule. She would state that she understood, yet no selections would be provided to us.*** Phone: ? Fax:
With regard to payments made to date; her original estimate was written for carpet installation in the basement, pre-credit line. However, she selected a simulated wood product, considerably more expensive in both material and labor. We provided her with a change order for the upgrade, which she signed. We have not yet invoiced her for all of the work that has been completed to date. We were waiting to complete the basement work to finalize the invoicing. However, we were notified on 11/6/18 that she had obtained an attorney and that all work was to cease and we were to have our equipment and any materials belonging to us removed from the property by Friday 11/9/18. Only a few days before this her fiancé stated everything looked good. We also have an email from him dated 10/31/18 stating he trusts us.
Attached is an estimate which outlines the repairs we have completed to date. The construction draws that have been received are applied to this, as well as credit for any work that has not been done yet. She states that all she has received is flooring and drywall. This is not the case. We have done framing, plumbing, electrical, finish items like doors and trim, etc. In fact, we have completed the majority of the work in the basement. We will not agree to refund $15,000 to the customer. To date, we have only received $29,659.48 from the homeowner towards her remodel. Per the attached estimate outlining the work completed to date, she owes us an additional $11,151.73.
We have no hard feelings towards the homeowner. However she needs to take ownership of many of the delays and acknowledge that she was advised many times what was needed to complete the project. If you need further information, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Great Oak Construction, Inc.
Doug R
CC: File Attachment*** ? Phone: ? Fax:
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Great Oaks response to my complaint is unacceptable. I have an entire file of emails proving that their defense is a bold lie. To say they were waiting on my selections is absurd, especially with 18 months worth of emails. I attempted to resolve this issue through the Revdex.com but will now proceed with lawsuit with my attorney. I have more than enough information for legal action.
Regards