John was hired by my company to provide Architectural work for Tenant Improvements on our business…read morebuilding. We entered into a contract in Oct 13 2014 to have this worked performed. The TI work to perform was very basic, walls, demo, lighting, ceiling... John was aware of his obligation to also fulfill requirements from Irvine Company, ADA, and Title 24 and Peer groups.
John came across as very understanding with a calm safe demeanor, as our plans moved forward I began to see details in his work performance, very poor followup, failure to grasp simple instructions. Our one mistake was signing a contract that paid John as he performed certain duties, needless to say this was a mistake; as now - since he has been paid almost in full, he now refuses to fulfill the last duties on the contract- to submit our plans unless we pay more money outside of the contract.
Our original contract was $9,900 as to date we paid over $14k and almost 6 months later NO permits.
In December John began to complain about not being paid enough, he started to complicate the issues of TI work often giving me reasons he could not move forward, misinformation in regards to Title 24. Our requirements were very simple, he went out of his way to complicate these issues and even had the nerve to say he would not submit our full plan that we paid for, but would submit a reduced plan for the front office- Then, expected us to pay to have the work to be done all over again, it was the same work we paid to have done in the first place, NOTHING changed. He also emailed us saying he would not submit our plans due to a moral issue, yet if we paid more money he would then submit the plan.
As a professional, it was his duty to explain the procedure, and follow this TI work to its completion. He has failed on every front, using tricks and play on words to try and turn the issues back at us, instead of providing us our permit as he agreed, which by the way he says has been ready since January 2015. Why don't we have our permit then, because we refuse to pay his ransom fees!
We have tried to reason and compromise with him in every way possible, since no other Architect will take on his work, and since we cannot do anything with TI without the permits, John has us in a corner and is using this to force us into paying more money. Our last hope was a negotiation in him submitting this full plan set if we remove him as architect on record - This came after he was informed we filed a complaint against him with the Architectural review board. We of course agreed given that he would guarantee us our permit, we asked him to verify for us what the plans he was submitting consisted of, HE REFUSED, telling us to look at the plans?!? We are not architects, our only choice was to get a written document of what he promised to submit, for our protection - since he has been proven untrustworthy.
John also sent over a pathetic "Release of all Claims" contract, removing all responsibility for his work, guaranteeing we could not sue or he would be entitled to all attorney fees, essentially this contract would leave us impotent, especially after he submits these plans to the city- that BTW he is refusing to outline exactly what they consist of.
I have filed complaints with the appropriate agencies, and legal recourse seems to be our only hope.
You've been warned.
