I'm trying to find a one stop shop to help apply for an ADU permit for me, and David & Sons caught my eye due to their low initial quote. The communication was great, Joseph seemed to be on top of everything; however, a week later when I told them I'm ready to move forward with them, Joseph provided me with a totally different quote that was double his initial quote. But, since we had been in good communication for so long, even though the second quote was twice the amount, I decided to ignore that red flag because 1) it still had a reasonable payment schedule - 10% downpay + 90% upon city approval of the plan and 2) it made it seem like they are very confident in their ability to gain city approval.
The day I went in to sign the contract, I paid 10% downpay as we discussed. Due to my blind trust in them, I went ahead and signed the contract. The next day, we had an architect walk through my property, and at the end of the walkthrough Joseph asked for a second payment which came as a huge surprise. He said it was "per contract" which should have 4 payments, with almost 70% of the payment due before the plan even gets submitted. It was entirely different than the original plan of 10% downpay + 90% upon approval. At that point, it felt like I got trapped by them, as if they had used a hook strategy to catch me and then once they got me as a client, they completely hiked up their pricing.
Joseph asked me take a look at the contract again, and as he said, there were the 4 payments scheduled. He had NEVER mentioned this to me beforehand, so he completely blindsided me into signing a contract that I did not agree to. I called Joseph to tell him that I'm not comfortable with the new payment schedule and about my concern with their constant change in payment plans. At that point, we were already 2-3 weeks in to the process, so I was willing to give in because of how much time I already sunk in with them. I asked for a guarantee that I would be able to get the permit because I felt like my trust was getting abused. Joseph constantly asked me "why can't you just trust me", but he was the one who was constantly changing the plan. Trust needs to be earned, but David & Sons didn't even try to earn my trust, instead they completely abused it by blindsiding me about the payment schedule.
The next day, thinking that Joseph would be reasonable and move forward with me about this project, I got a letter from him and his partner instead canceling our entire deal. They gave me my 10% downpay back, but I already wasted 3 weeks of my time and effort. They jeopardized my plan approval by taking up a huge chunk of the little window of time I have to get it approved before the city starts fining me.
To be fair, they were nice enough to let me directly contact their subcontracted architect, but that resulted in another disaster. Turns out, David & Sons gave both of us a different deal. They charged me less than what they said they would pay to the architect - which should be vice versa, resulting in huge confusion and distrust which further wasted more of my limited time. After this entire process, I became the victim with a month of wasted time, effort, and a hugely jeopardized plan. It's going to cost me much, much more to obtain a completely new draft of my plan since this one is going to expire and because of any city fines that are going to come my way.
Instead of getting a contractor that would streamline the process for me, I only gained frustration, confusion, stress, a delayed plan, wasted time and effort, and financial loss. read more