In short, we contracted with Betterliving Sunrooms to build a sunroom off the kitchen of our house. When we met one of Howard's sales associates, Joe, we were informed that the expenses would be $1,000. When we later met with Howard, he mentioned the same fee. The sunroom required a variance from the town, which was denied by the town board. Their reason for the denial was that the variance request was too much (60% or 12 foot variance in a 20 foot setback), not because of my neighbor's objections, as Howard indicates in the letter. He knows this and was there when they denied the variance. Regardless, this is not the issue.
Only after pressing him for a detailed invoice via e-mail did we receive one. We also told him that we wanted the plans that were produced, along with all Photoshop images created and receipts for the Permit, Zoning, and Certified Mailing. The only item we received was the detailed invoice. We did not receive copies of any receipts nor the original Photoshop files (we only received the finished jpg files).
More frustrating is the list of fees. We never authorized some of these, and others are simply outrageous:
Supplemental Labor (Picture Taking) - $150: We never authorized Howard to send anyone to our home to take a digital picture of the side of our house, nor were we notified that that we would pay for this cost. We could have very easily sent him pictures ourselves and avoiding that fee. We were never given the option.in addition, $150 is a ridiculous fee for someone to travel the 10 miles from their location to our house to take a picture with a digital camera. This was not a necessary item for the permit/variance process.
Supplemental Photo Shop Consulting - $85: Again, same as the above cost. I could have easily done this, but we were never notified that this was going to incur a cost, told of the cost, or offered the option of whether we wanted it done.
Postage - $234: The mailings were sent out twice. The first time Betterliving Sunrooms sent out the variance notification, they filled it out improperly and the town made them send out another mailing. We will not be responsible for paying for Betterliving Sunroom's mistakes. Also, there is no receipt to verify that $234 expense.
Meetings @ $400 x 2 = $800: We were never told of the fee for each meeting in advance, nor asked if we wanted Howard to be present. His presence was not required and the pictures he produced and displayed to the town board drew their ire when they realized that the same tree appeared twice, next to each other in the photo, making the amount of land between the sunroom and property line larger than it actually would be. I find it hard to believe that a reasonable fee is $400/meeting when both meetings only lasted a grand total of about 2 hours (About 1 hour and 15 minutes for the first meeting, and 45 minutes for the second).
Howard states in his letter that he did not make any money off the process but I beg to differ with some of those rates he quoted. More so, my wife and I never gave approval for a number of these expenses, nor were we even given the option to refuse them. We also refuse to pay for the error Betterliving Sunrooms made in sending out the initial certified letters.
Furthermore, the contract we signed states that Betterliving Sunrooms of NY has 15 days (nowhere on the contract does it say business days) to return our money due to a cancellation. The contract was cancelled effective Tuesday, June 18th, at approximately 9 PM due to the denial of the variance. We did not receive the check until Saturday, July 7th, a span of 19 days. This is a clear breach of contract. Because of this, I expect a return in full of the remaining $2,000. We have received but have not cashed the check for $3,000.
FYI - Howard is considered a dealer for Craftbilt. I contacted them and although there marketing Manger agreed with several of the things Howard did was wrong she told me she could not assist with getting my money back.
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