We worked with Allscapes Inc., a landscaping company out of Colleyville, in September of last year to get a new, nice, structurally sound retaining wall. The retaining wall that we had was all railroad ties which were falling down into our neighbor's yard. Our neighbors installed some additional wooden barriers to help brace the original retaining wall while the previous owner lived in our house. We got a quote of $15,000 from Brad Land (owner) at Allscapes Inc. and we thought it was reasonable with the price of supplies being so high at the time.
We provided Brad with the site survey that was performed when we purchased the house two years prior to this in order to take measurements and make sure that everything was all set. Brad came out and measured the area himself and then over the course of a week his team came out and built the wall. Right away, our neighbors knew that something was wrong with it. First thing they noticed was that their small garden, which had a separate fence, was encased in concrete by the workers. The second, was how off the new wall looked from the wall that was in the front of our yard. They took measurements based off of their own site survey and with ours and found that the wall was measuring 6 inches into their yard at the front of the wall. We had Brad come out and he showed us all how he got his measurements and things just weren't adding up for us. So my husband and I did the only thing that we thought we could do with Brad's confidence in the wall, we spent $500 and got a new site survey done. The new one confirmed that the wall was in our neighbor's yard. At this point, Brad was not taking our calls at the Allscapes Inc. office and emails were getting us nowhere. The office manager knew our numbers and stopped passing on our messages to Brad.
Eventually we were able to get him out to talk to him again and show him the new site survey. He took one look at the new survey and said, "Well then your old one must have been wrong because my measurements were sound". Brad Land came to our house and called us liars to our faces and accused of us trying to "get one over on him". He then said that he would not be fixing the wall, because it was right, and if we wanted it changed, we would need to pay for it again.
We've had to hire a lawyer in an attempt to have Brad and Allscapes Inc. correct his mistakes and inform him we'll take him to court to get this issue resolved if needed. Our lawyer pulled Brad's and Allscapes Inc.'s assets and discovered the they have multiple liens against the company and barely any assets to their names. We have a strong case that easily proves Brad and Allscapes Inc. are in violation of the contract we signed, but due to their poor money management we can't be guaranteed payment/reimbursement after winning the case.
We have now had to hire a 2nd landscaping company to come out and fix Brad's and Allscapes Inc.'s mistakes. The $15,000 for the current wall came from my parents as a wedding gift, and that money has been essentially wasted. As newlyweds and first-time homeowners, it's been incredibly hard to deal with this and I just wanted to share our experience here with our community. Luckily our next-door neighbors are dear friends and while it has been an entire year without a fence between us and their garden fence still incased in our new wall, they have remained incredibly gracious people.
Please, please be aware of the issues with Allscapes Inc. They are not accredited with the BBB at all and have very poor online reviews. Please learn from our mistakes and do not do business with Brad Land or Allscapes Inc. We're hoping that our retaining wall nightmare is over with soon. read more