Quinn Homes

I am John with Quinn Homes. Our company, Quinn Homes, Inc, has been State Licensed since 1999 and has over 60 years of combined experience in the construction industry. I was initially contacted to review a structural roof issue Ms. was having. Sadly, upon review of the home, it became clear Ms. was a victim of defective and unlicensed work by another contractor. Since that discovery, we have done everything imaginable to aid her in the financial recovery of the very real and significant damages that she had incurred as a result of the unlicensed work. This included; a written detailed description of the damages and the requirements to repair the problems; accompanying her to the building department to discuss the matter as it related to the previously issued permit; temporarily supporting the existing structure to keep it from collapsing; employing an engineer to review the problem and write a report; communicated with the engineer of record from the previous project to determine what if anything was reviewed or recommended; conducted an hour long phone interview with the previous contractor on the behalf of Ms.; attended countless hours of meetings with attorneys, insurance adjusters, and other engineers; consulted with her attorney on matters related to the project; I spent 4 hours on a Sunday evening preparing questions for her attorney to ask at the offending contractor's deposition. I can document all of this.

As anyone can imagine, this has been a tough experience for Ms.. Through all of this, Ms. was determined to move on. At her request, I began the process of developing a project to replace the existing defective structure. Some initial designs were rendered which required completely documenting the existing sizes of rooms in the home and locating everything correctly on her property. Preliminary drawings were completed, and a proposal rendered to Ms. in June of 2017. The project was significant and costlier than what Ms. anticipated, and she said she needed time to decide what she wanted to do. After what Ms. was going through with the other contractor; we were not anticipating an immediate decision on our proposal regardless and we most certainly did not pressure Ms. in any way. Surprisingly, in a matter of a few weeks, Ms. emailed me and indicated she wanted to move forward with the project. She also had some other items that she wanted to include in the project. I updated the drawings and prepared a new proposal/contract and emailed it to her for her review.

Approximately 10 days later Ms. and I met for a final review. Given her active court case, I asked her if she was sure that she wanted to demo the existing project given that litigation was not resolved, and she said, "yes, I want that thing off my house." "I have allocated the necessary finances and I want to get started as soon as possible." She further said, "We have documented everything, and I don't want this on my home any longer". She further stated, "I probably won't get any money anyway". At that time, she signed the proposal and submitted a deposit. She further indicated she was excited and wanted to get moving on this as soon as possible. During the course of the next few weeks following the execution of the agreement, plans were finalized, engineers were consulted, and we were preparing to demo the existing project.

Approximately a week before we were scheduled to start the demolition process, in the middle of August, Ms. contacted me by phone requesting to put the project on hold. Her attorney insisted the house remain intact to protect the evidence and demonstrate the liability of the previous contractor. Despite creating a giant scheduling hole and financial hardship for Quinn Homes, we agreed to postpone the project. As time progressed, in early October, Ms. requested that we revisit the project design and related concerns about the flow and functionality. I told her I would work on a new design and see what I could come up with. During the course of the redesign work, I consulted with our engineer regarding the new design and he brought to my attention that he had just been recently asked by another contractor to come up with a design for the very same residence. As one can imagine, I found this quite troubling given that we had already contracted for the new addition and renovation.

At my next meeting with Ms., before I reviewed the new designs, I asked her about the other contractor and what her intentions were. She related that she changed her mind about the other contractor and was moving forward with us. Somewhat confused, I asked her if she was sure that was what she wanted to do, and she said absolutely. I sensed that she was embarrassed about the situation and even offered to refund the unused portion of her deposit and cancel the deal. Ms. declined the offer and stated that she wanted to move forward with Quinn Homes. At which point, I revealed the revised project.

She stated the new project accomplished exactly what she wanted and that she anticipated being able to start in March 2018. She asked if there was anything project related that she could be doing in the meantime and I gave her all of my vendors' information so that she could begin to pick out cabinets, flooring, counter-tops, etc. I further asked her to keep me informed on the progress of her other case, so I could prepare to start her project as soon as it was possible. Approximately five weeks later, I get an email that she wants to cancel our agreement stating that the court case seems to be going on indefinitely.

At this point, Quinn Homes was no longer willing to cancel our contract. I explained this initially in a phone call. A phone call in which she started to minimize everything that was done on her behalf. I further explained the whole situation to her attorney who also attempted to minimize everything that was done on behalf of Ms.. Every attempted communication from that point forward was not an effort to move forward with the project, but a further attempt to minimize the work we had done and breach the contract.

Our company does great work and we count on referral business. Ms. is genuinely a nice lady, but under the circumstances, our investment related to her project exceeded her deposit. On another note, before she decided to cancel her contract, she referred us to a friend that we did a great job for. That friend allowed us to use her for a reference and we also completed another great project. As a gesture of goodwill an offer was submitted to Ms. attorney.