We met with Kevin Spitzer on March 3rd to discuss building a deck. We agreed on a contract to build one, and we were informed that it takes two months at the most for everything to go through the town, though we were assured it would be a shorter time frame than that. Therefore, the construction would begin on May 3rd at the latest.
We gave our deposit and inquired about the company verifying that the remainder of the money was in the same account. I told Kevin that the rest of the money was in a different account, so when the verification was made, it would not be there. I asked if I needed to verify the money in the other account for the company, and Kevin assured me that it would not be a problem and it would not hold anything up. This was the first lie that we were told.
Over the next two months we received no phone calls or check-ins from the company. I began calling in early April to check on the status and we were assured by Denise Cabello that everything was on track and the plans were submitted. It is important to point out that I left two to three messages for Denise each time I attempted to contact her before she called back. This pattern continued throughout the entire 6 month experience.
I also called the Township of West Orange to check on the status of the plans, and I was informed that they were not submitted until April 21st. This is 49 days after our meeting with Kevin and 12 days before the two month mark where construction was to begin. This was completely unacceptable. At this point I left messages with Denise as well as with you and Jerry Leen to find out what was going on. After talking with Denise and another member of the building department, they admitted to me that the funds verification took two weeks because the money was not in the account, which held up the plans by at least two weeks.
This left 35 days unaccounted for. We were told that the architect took 14 days at the most to write the plans. This left 21 days unaccounted for. Again, this is unacceptable and pushed back our construction tremendously. We met with your company during the off-season on purpose to avoid the busy time of spring, and now we were in the middle of it.
After the plans were submitted on April 21st, Geniece, the Zoning Officer from the Township of West Orange, contacted us on May 2nd to inform us that the plans had to be rewritten because it did not meet zoning codes. It is important to point out that this review by the town took 11 days. Though I found it odd that your company did not either know the zoning for our area or inquire about the zoning before writing the plans, I contacted Denise to fix the problem.
Fixing the problem by altering the deck plans was not what caused us anguish it was the fact that we were doing it on May 2nd instead of in March. If your company had submitted the plans in March as they were supposed to, we would have had this zoning problem fixed and the plans rewritten before the projected May 3rd date. The plans were rewritten and Denise contacted me on May 17th to tell me that she had submitted the new plans to the town that day. She also sent us a copy for our records. I would find out later that I was lied to again.
We did not hear from Denise or your company until mid-June when Denise called and informed us that we had passed through the Zoning Board and were waiting for our building permit. She stated that this takes two weeks at the most, and then the building would begin. After 3 weeks, I contacted Denise and she stated that she was sending Andy Gemeindhardt down to the town offices to see what was going on and then she would contact me that following Monday, July 17th with information. I received no such phone call.
I then contacted Ms. & myself on Thursday, July 20th, and she informed me that she had no plans resubmitted from our address. She then explained that she had received a couple of nasty messages from Denise asking for information about our plans, but again, there were no plans. Denise then called me right after I hung up with Ms. &, and I informed her of this fact. She then stated that she was sending Andy down that day. He never went to the offices the week before as I was told he would.
I then went down to the offices myself with all the paperwork I had from your company to talk with Ms. G& and Andy. I met with Ms. & and she stated again that she had no resubmitted plans for my address, but that the plans that I had with me were the ones that were supposed to be submitted. These plans were our copy for our records as told to us by Denise.
At this point, Andy arrives with a copy of the plans, stating that he had the plans for submission. These were the plans that were supposed to have been submitted on May 17th. When I inquired about his, he stated that he didn't know about that, but he had the plans now. Ms. & stated that we had to begin the process over again and it would take at least a month to get it done. It was at this point I completely broke down in the office the anguish that your company had caused me was too much.
Seeing that I was visibly upset, Ms. & took my paperwork, told Andy that he and your company were lying to me, and she completed all of the paperwork and building permits in one hour. I then had a conversation with Andy about how I could not believe a company would treat people the way we had been treated, and that we were lied to from the start. He assured me that he was unaware of this and did not want his company to treat customers this way.
I would like to know how someone at the head of the building department does not know about a customer's situation, but nothing surprised with your company at this point. Finally, he assured me that as soon as the permit came through, we would have the contractors at the house to start building. The permit was picked up the next morning, and the building began that day. None of this would have happened so quickly if Ms. - had not taken pity on me when she saw how your company was treating me. I did not expect to have to cry my way into a deck when we met with Kevin on March 3rd.
Finally, I have not heard from anyone in your company since that meeting with Andy the parking lot of the building office on July 20th. Not one person has called to check on the status of the deck or even apologize for conducting business so horribly.
Jennifer
West Orange, New Jersey
U.S.A.
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