Elitekb

They are now suing me for the balances on the countertops and labor associated with installing them even though the material was not supplied and work not done. In addition, they have decided not to return the almost $5000. 00 they have which were deposits on materials and payment for a sink drain and bottom grid. He has rebutted my review on a couple of sites, and his rebuttal is full of lies. After insisting to me that I had signed a contract with him ( and he never did bring me a copy) he has now stated I refused to sign one, and he regrets it. He claims I simply changed my mind on the material when in fact he ordered the wrong item. There is a lot more he lied about, but too much to go into here. He claims I did not hire Elite Kitchen and Bath, but rather Express Contracting. This is probably because I pointed out that Elite is not licensed, as it should be. I hired Elite Kitchen and Bath, period. In all actuality, I never even knew there was such a thing as Express Contracting until he had me write out some checks to them. He is very quick to state that his workers are "legal" immigrants on his payroll. Since this topic never came up, I have to wonder why he is mentioning it- he "doth protest too much". Something I never thought about, but maybe now is the time to think about it. He claims I got detailed invoices with material and cost on each project. No, not true. He still will not explain why I had over ten thousand dollars worth of "materials" from Home Depot, when it is an impossibility. None of those items are described. Since everything he purchased for me is listed separately, there can not be an additional $10,000.00 of "materials". That's a heck of a lot of grout.

I dont even know where to start. I dont know if I will have enough room to list everything that went wrong. Elite kitchen and Bath/Express Contracting are two business arms of the same company. Elite sells you the materials, and you pay Express ( by the man hour) for labor. You wind up paying checks out to both companies, and in all actuality, I also wound up paying over $11,000 to the father of the owner, David, who may or may not still be part of the business, but my check sure as heck was not written out to a business. Express is apparently not licensed as I write ( it was) and Elite has never been licensed. The Dept of Consumer Affairs told me that any retail business which refers, recommends, uses- any entity which does home improvement work must also be licensed, so Elite is in violation of licensing law. I was also supposed to be given a contract with all the details and the cost of the job, both labor and materials, but no, I never got one. All contractors know what a job is going to cost, but this one just shows up every week or two, like a rent collector, to get a check for the work which was done over the past two week period. After a while you do not even know how many hours the guys worked, on which jobs, and how much you are even paying. They are also not listed with the Better Business Bureau, and according the the BBB site, they never gave them the information requested in order to list them.

I hired Elite to put down a tile floor in my basement, and new ceiling tiles as well. I also hired them to do part of my kitchen, mainly replacing the island with a new one, the countertops on both the L-shape part and the new island, and to purchase and install a new wall oven, microwave, dishwasher, and eventually a sink and cooktop on the new counter. They also did some other minor jobs for me which I will mention later.

The guy who did the basement floor spent over three weeks, ten hours a day, putting down that floor. It is a very small basement, and should have taken a third of the time. At $70 an hour labor to Express Contracting, that puts an awful lot of money in their pockets. They claim they purchased over nine hundred very large floor riles - roughly 9 X 34, but I have no information on manufacturer, color, where they came from, and there is not even one small piece left over, and I have no warranty on the floor.

After almost six months, they were dragging their feet; things should have been finished in half the time. They also purchased and installed a storm door for me, which was costly, installed it incorrectly, and it is going to have to be removed. They took my entrance door off to install new weatherstrip on the bottom, and now it is difficult to open and close the door - it drags. The guy insists thats the way it should be. No, not true.

He brought in a painter he sub-contracts to for painting a kitchen with very little wall and trim, laundry room, powder room and basement, to the tune of over $11,000. The guy did not repair or sand anything, but merely painted over all the damage. According to David Sharbani, if things needed repair, they should have just been ripped off and replaced with new trim. Sorry, that is not what I do. The guy also got paint on the floors, windows, doorknobs, and ore. I am still scraping it. IN addition, he was supposed to cut out and replace a piece of sheetrock which had mold on it, and he simply painted right over it. I now have to pay someone to do that job.

There were thousands of dollars of items listed as having been purchased from places like Home depot, a lumber yard, a plumbing supply place. Nothing was itemized, no names of actual items purchased. There was no way in hell that the amount of supposed purchases were used in this house.

They left black rut marks all over my patio with their equipment, and I had just spent a fortune having it power washed.

His guys insisted on storing things in my garage, and even though I watched like a hawk, and stopped them from cutting wood and mixing grout near my car, they succeeded in damaging the car and I had to take it in for bodywork.

The straw that broke the camels back was the day the men finally arrived with the countertops, right after breaking up and removing what was here, along with my sink, cooktop, turning off the gas supply to the cooktop and all my plumbing in the kitchen. They showed up with the wrong color and pattern, and then the owner insisted its what I ordered. I know darn well what I ordered, and when I told him we had discussed my order being based on blending in with a few small counter areas which were to remain, he did not remember that discussion, nor did he remember bringing the sample I picked out, but somehow he did remember the wrong pattern he ordered. He attempted to paint me as inept and doddering. He was more than willing to order a new counter, and charge me his cost. Was not going to happen.

I had to hire someone else for the counters, and to install the appliances and sink, so I am without a kitchen for weeks now, and living mostly elsewhere, coming back to the house when necessary. He owes me money as well, which he has not produced. He owes for the countertops, the sink drain and bottom grid, all of which he got paid for. All in all he owes me about $5000. 00 and Express owes me for $12 00.00 worth of work of installing the new counters and hooking everything up. I probably have to go to court to recoup my losses. He also should pay for the damage to my entrance door and the abominable storm door, as well as a new painter to undo the damage his guy did. Paid these guys over $70,000 and the jobs probably could have been done, and done better and more efficiently at almost half the price. After almost fifty years of using contractors and being my own contractor at times, you would think I knew better, but he was strongly recommended by someone I knew, and the referral was seconded by someone who lives in my neighborhood. Could they be so clueless, or is it that David figured he could con a widowed senior citizen?