Jon was the General Contractor for our large-scale home renovation in Corte Madera. As a result of the extremely poor experience we had, we feel it is our duty to warn other homeowners considering working with him.
Throughout the project, Jon demonstrated a complete lack of customer service. He both knowingly went against our explicit requests and made important decisions without our consent. In addition, he drastically exceeded our agreed budget with limited to no prior notification of the scope of change orders.
Jon repeatedly threatened us throughout the project, telling us "we weren't from here" and "I know everyone, I've worked here for 25 years". Jon caused an inordinate amount of stress and difficulty to our family, during an already trying time for all (COVID-19). We hope other families will seriously consider our feedback before working with him in the future. His business dealings are shady, his work product is questionable, and his integrity is low. We recommend you do business elsewhere.
Some illustrative examples of our very poor experience are included below. Please read and deeply consider if you are evaluating working with him.
1) Jon threatened to put a lien on our house after an invoice was unpaid 3 days after it was sent. His contractual terms are that invoices must be paid within 10 days of receipt. Jon refused to respond to any correspondence or return to the job site until the invoice was paid in full (within the contractual period), even though a) we communicated several pieces of work were incomplete b) he had a $5K deposit on retainer and c) he was paid on time for all prior invoices totaling over $175K.
2) Jon tried to prevent our family (including two children, 3 and 1) from moving home during COVID when no other accommodations were available to us locally due to CA Shelter In Place guidelines, even though the home was liveable while finish work was completed. Note: Jon and his team worked on the project throughout COVID without following proper safety protocols, including wearing masks. Because we could not find any other accommodations, we ultimately had to bring in the building official to confirm it was acceptable for us to move home in spite of his refusal.
3) Jon installed new fire alarms throughout the house on the day of inspection, after the entire home and ceilings were already repainted and paid, and left the old fire alarms installed. Every room in the house now has 2 fire alarms. He refused to remove the old fire alarms and patch and paint the ceiling saying "removal of the old fire alarms was not in the plans".
4) Jon left open, uncovered outlets in our living room and children's bedrooms, and refused to return to the job site to correct even after multiple text, email and phone messages were sent to him over the period of 1 month.
5) Jon did not know the CA building code, and tried to force us to install a 36" landing on our tiny back deck. We ultimately researched the code ourselves and learned that the requirements only specified 2 10" stairs. Jon charged us $3k (paid in full, in advance) for 2 10"x 10' wood stairs.
6) With no prior discussion, Jon charged us $9K to tile a 30x60" bathtub (material costs excluded), relative to an original tiling budget of $3K. He spread these change orders out over 3 invoices so it almost went unnoticed (though the work was completed in a few days).
7) Jon set a budget of $15K for redoing electrical in the entire house, but agreed to work with us to reduce the budget. We deleted more than 50% of the original scope, yet he still charged us the full $15K and refused to provide a breakout of costs, claiming he was not required to do so.
8) Jon installed a different lighting system, electrical outlets and outlet covers than the products we requested. He refused to replace the items unless we procured (at our own expense) the product we originally requested, and never ultimately completed the work in spite of one month of notifications that we had the requested products ready for installation.
9) Jon charged us twice for painting our living room, after we decided to change the paint color when only a primer coat of the original color was applied. Jon's team splattered paint all of our expensive RH curtain rods, and Jon told us to clean it off ourselves "with soap and water".
10) Jon refused to provide an electronic copy of his detailed budget as he didn't want it "shopped" around to other GCs. No other contractor we interviewed had any concerns with sharing a detailed budget.
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