Lawrence Hartwell Racies (Larry Racies), owner of The Hartwell Group in Deltona, Florida placed and ad in the local PennySaver newspaper stating he was a licensed contractor who builds decks.
I called the number in the ad and he came to my house with books full of pictures of decks he claimed he built. We contracted with him to build our deck and paid him a large sume upfront for materials. After not hearing from him for over a week, he showed up with a few boards, a box of screws and a trailer full of rusted tools that he probably picked up at a pawn shop with our "materials" money.
After he began work, it was painfully obvious that he was clueless when it came to building a deck, sawing a plank or working a screwdriver. His level was broken (had no liquid in it) and as a result, the deck was not square, level or plumb. We called him on it numerous times during construction and our neighbors even pointed out the multiple quality problems.
At some point, after giving him too many "progress payments", which was our fault for being so stupid, he proclaimed that he was finished working on the deck unless we gave him even more money. We were 99% of the way done on the payments but this deck didn't have railings, benches that were called for in the contract or even the materials that we contracted for.
Sick of the whole ordeal, we threw this imbecile off our property. To make a long story short, he ended up suing us! We have subsequently learned that he has done this exact same thing to other homeowners in Volusia County, Florida on many, many different occasions. I am not making this up!!! Please confirm the number of lawsuits that Lawrence Hartwell Racies and the Hartwell Group has been involved in by visiting the Volusia County Clerk's website at www.clerk.org and doing a search on the name "Racies" or "Hartwell Group". It's staggering how many times he's been involved in civil litigation. Guess what? He has never prevailed in a single one of his lawsuits. Many of them have resulted in judgements and stipulations against HIM!
We also found out that he wasn't even a licensed contractor. We filed a complaint with the Florida Department of Professional Regulation, who have also cited him multiple times for operating as an unlicensed contractor. He was later convicted and ordered to pay a $2000 fine. Additionally, the Volusia County Contractor Licensing authorities issued a citation and after a hearing, he was found guilty of unlicensed contracting and fined by them as well. I am not making this up either - check out his record on the Central Florida Better Business Bureau's website at http://centralflorida. BBB.org / - you will need to do a search on "Hartwell Group" where it lists both of these convictions and case numbers - it's all public record.
He has tried and failed to get his very own contractor's license. Again, his attempts to take and his failures of the various exams for a contractor license are all public record. It's clear he cannot handle it.
He is now representing Zee's Construction or ZCI or Zee's Designs - they go by multiple names. I honestly hope that they do not trust him to have customer contact or, God forbid, pick up a tool and work on somebody's house or business.
We learned a very expensive lesson by trusting Lawrence Hartwell Racies and the Hartwell Group. We are not telling you not to do business with this man or any of the companies that he represents but PLEASE, for God's sake, check out his background before you do. It is all public information and readily available.
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