Severance Circle Foot Center, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2017/10/25) */
The assertion is that "the builder not only chose a mortar for the masonry work on the home" but "copied and pasted" that info onto the selections sheet ultimately approved by the homeownerI'm not sure what the motivation would be for the
builder to do thisThe homeowner states that they were never given a choice of mortar though we have small mortar samples in our design center and the only way to choose anything other than the default of standard gray, is to physically type the information into the Excel based selections form we use in the field for constructing the homeI had personal conversations with the homeowner regarding their displeasure with the finished product and listened to their assertions that "they would never have picked that color for their mortar"At no point did I accept or agree with them that it was incorrectBecause they are a second time client, I chose not to argue with them or assume they were being dishonest with me, but to offer them the costly yet guaranteed solution of staining the mortar to a color of their choosingThis was agreed as a solution and a professional company out of South Bend was contracted and a deposit made to themThe company alerted all that they would not be able to address anything until post Labor DayThe subsequent scheduling was to occur between the staining company and the homeownerThe company met with the homeowner, did color test portions that met with the homeowner's approvalThe company did no further work at that time and subsequently called me to let me know that they had observed some mortar splatter that was on the face of the stone work and suggested we have it cleaned off before they arrived to do the rest of the staining as addressing this was not part of their scope of work contractedThe homeowner was alerted and our mason was contactedHis first scheduled day was rained out and again the homeowner was alertedI confirmed a week later that the mason had made it back to clean the affected areas and called the staining company to have them reschedule with the homeownerSeveral weeks passed *** nothing was doneI made multiple inquiries to the staining company without a prompt responseIn the meantime, the homeowner expressed his frustration that nothing had happened and when questioned, told me that the staining company had contacted his wife several weeks prior to reschedule the workShe had told them that the cleaning had not been done and no appointment was set for them to resume workIt was at this stage that they made it known that the agreed upon staining was no longer acceptable to them and that pulling the stone down and re-laying it was the only optionI responded to them on the 25th that this was not an agreeable solution and that our preference would be to seek arbitrationAs the solution of staining was a goodwill offering and not the result of a contractual obligation, the homeowner was advised that this offering would be removed from the table should they choose the arbitration routeThe selections sheet is attached and substantiating emails are available upon request