We hired Kenny Holmes and David Foster to do some excavation work on a farm we had recently purchased.initially we hired them to remove some fence lines and hedgerows. Mr. Holmes quoted me around $10,000 to do all the work. After about two weeks of Holmes working on what we hired them for he contacted me about doing additional tile and terrace work on the farm. I asked him to give me a ball park on what he thought it would cost and he stated around $150,000. I immediatlely told Mr. Holmes I could not afford an expense like that for several months. Kenny said they could do the work and I could pay him 10-12 months later after we harvested crops. I told Kenny I wanted a clear and precise estimate in writing on what improvements they were going to make and I would decide after reviewing their proposal. I also asked Mr. Holmes a timeline to complete all the work because we needed to plant crops timely and he stated 2 months. It took Mr. Holmes 6 months to complete his work.
To my dismay, Mr. Holmes went ahead and began the improvements without giving me an estimate first. I immediatly questioned Mr. Holmes about his estimate, he told me he was working on it and he would treat us fairly and get his quote to me shortly. Then one day I get a call from a neighbor stating Mr. Holmes was hauling dirt off my farm by the truck loads and wanted to know if I had given Mr. Holmes permission to haul several truck loads of dirt off the farm and I stated I had not. I contacted Mr. Holmes immediately and asked him why he was hauling our dirt off our farm. Mr. Holmes responded that he was working on a different project down the road and needed the extra dirt for fill in. I immediatley told Mr. Holmes to cease hauling my dirt off my farm.
Eventually Mr. Holmes completed all the work in time for us to plant crops. Once Mr. Holmes completed the work I spent the better part of a day measuring all the tile lines and terraces so I could get an estimate of what the bill would be. After getting Mr. Holmes to give me his price per foot for different tiles sizes, I used those numbers to calculate the cost of the work and came up with $104,078.50
Mr. Holmes and his partner David Foster then contacted me asking to meet so they could give me their invoice for their work. I met with them the following day and they gave me a bill for $143,901.66!!! That's $39,823.16 difference in my calculations!!!
Instead of confronting Mr. Holmes and Mr. Foster when they gave me their bill I went back to my home and compared numbers. It was immediately clear they just put a bunch of numbers down and came up with a number. First, they billed me for 38 terraces terraces and tile intakes. They only built 35 terraces. I measured each terrace with the flags they left in the ground and came up with 8520 feet of terraces and that was being very generous. They billed me for 9550 feet of terraces at $6.00 per foot. The list goes on and on in discrepencies.
I then contacted Mr. Holmes about his bill and notified him I had measured everything with my GPS so I could get precise measurements and explained that his calculations were higher by almost $40,000 over my calculations. Mr. Holmes became short and angry with me and just replied "the bill is correct and we did a lot of work". I tried my best to remain calm with Mr. Holmes and asked if I could meet him at our farm and we could each go over the measurements and if he was right I would pay his bill and if I was correct then he could adjust my bill. Mr. Holmes and his partner David Foster refused to meet me.instead, they took the scumbag approach and hired an attorney to go file a lien on our farm instead of trying to resolve this like business men. I have since sold that farm and Mr. Holmes and Mr. Foster got their entire $143,901.66 even though they never did that much work. Beware of kenny holmes and david foster!!! They treated me unethical and are not honest and reliable businessmen!!! Litigation is pending!!!
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