Ultimo Organization, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2016/03/18) */
Copy of our contract. Work was described as urgent because the second floor was collapsing into the garage. I pursued getting a permit after the contract was signed before the holidays, They postponed our mobilization to the site because his...

wife did not want us there until after the holidays. Meanwhile, I had mobilized my supervision. Labor equipment and materials for work in December. Additional documentation will follow under separate cover. Make note that our contract has AAA mediation / Arbitration in the terms and conditions.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 10, 2016/03/27) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
We do not accept or agree with [redacted] response. We described the work as needing to get done soon, not urgent. The second floor was not collapsing into the garage because we had temporality shored it up before we contacted [redacted]. We did ask [redacted] to postpone the work until after the holidays due to the fact that it was the holidays and we also needed time to clear and prepare our garage for the work that needed to be done. This request was done 2 weeks after signing the contract. [redacted] did agree to this request of postponement. [redacted] did call and visit our City Hall to ask about obtaining a building permit. NO permit was ever issued due to the fact that it was determined that we needed to get a structural engineer report before a permit could be issued. This also postponed any starting of work that needed to be done. As to why [redacted] would mobilize a work crew and equipment for this job without a start date or a structural report is beyond us! No work crew, materials for the work or piece of equipment was ever on the site prior to cancelling the contract! When we signed the contract and [redacted] gave us our hard copy of that contract, he failed to give us a copy of the page that had the breakdown of the contract payment schedule. When we were finally able to print a copy from an email that he had sent us, we did see that there was a $1000 un-refundable contract deposit and yes we did see that we had acknowledged it by initialing it. When we called [redacted] to cancel the contract, we asked what a fair price would be to cancel the contract with no work being done. He verbally stated that $500 was a fair price for the amount of work he said he had done up to this point. We verbally agreed on that amount and we thanked him. [redacted] was the one to verbally set the amount of $500 to cancel the contract, not us! Then two weeks later after a few phone calls asking where our refund check was, we receive in the mail a cancellation agreement (which we did not sign) and a refund check with the amount less than the verbally agreed amount. He still needs to address the fact that he is keeping 20% or $400 of a specialty beam that he never ordered, put a deposit on or paid for! We are aware of the AAA mediation/ Arbitration clause in the contract and feel that if we were disputing work that was done unsatisfactory, then we would go that route with the AAA mediation. We are disputing the amount of the refund, not the work done. Because there was never any work done!! If need be we will pursue AAA mediation, but we are hoping [redacted] will resolve this dispute to both parties satisfaction!!