It's unfortunate that I am here writing this review, especially since I was initially excited to…read morework with Avi after seeing his positive reviews on his website.
In July 2022, I hired Avi to renovate my recently purchased house. Initially, I wanted to have another contractor do the kitchen remodel, but Avi said that he would not take on the job unless the kitchen was also included. Given how difficult it is to schedule contractors, I decided to move forward with Avi for the full renovation of the home, including the kitchen. At the end of the day, the total cost of the renovation was around $200,000. The cost of the kitchen was around $35,000.
The renovation project took about a few months, which is what we had planned for, so I was pleased with Avi's timeliness in getting the job done, especially since I was on a tight timeline to get my family moved into the home. As the project was getting close to finalized and the house was in a habitable condition, we started moving into the home.
In October, we went through the punch list and I pointed out a few issues or outstanding/open items with various smaller tasks throughout the house, including the lack of handles on the kitchen cabinets and improperly installed kitchen drawer slides. This was understandable, as any project will have issues or open tasks that need to be addressed. I had no doubt that Avi would get these things taken care of and even went forward with writing him a good review that he included on his website (one that I now retract and think he should take down).
How Avi handled things moving forward is where my experience with him really started to go down hill.
Once we went through the punch list and he addressed the items, all that needed to be done was to complete the final payment. I did notice that there were several tasks on the invoice he provided me which he did not do. For example, the lights under the cabinets were not purchased or installed, but my bill had an $800 charge for installation of those lights. I was okay with forgoing the cabinet lights so when I sent him my final check, I deducted the costs of any items that were not performed given that I had an itemized invoice. There was no reason for me to pay for labor and materials that I did not receive and would not receive. In total, I deducted about $2,950 from my final payment for work that was not performed. To be clear, this wasn't for work that was in dispute or done in poor quality - it was for work that was not performed at all. I told Avi that I would be happy to discuss this with him, but he did not raise any objection. In the grand scheme of things, the deduction amounted to about 1.5% of the total renovation cost.
In November, I started noticing some pretty significant issues with the quality of the work in the kitchen. The paint on the kitchen cabinets was peeling, the drawer handles were crooked, and the drawers would not close properly and were misaligned. The problems seemed to worsen as more time passed. I reached out to Avi and he essentially blew me off and would not stand behind his work, stating that despite the fact that he "always stands behind his work" he still had an "outstanding balance" with me. He was referring to the deductions in the final invoice, which, as I stated earlier, was for itemized work that he literally did not perform. He said that he would not dedicate any more resources to my project until this outstanding balance was complete. Keep in mind, I had paid him almost $200,000 at this point and he was refusing to address these issues. I was, and am, shocked and extremely disappointed, especially after he initially gave me an ultimatum that he would only do my home renovation if the kitchen was included in the project.
I was forced to bring in other contractors to assess the kitchen issues. Two contractors both informed me that the cabinet work overall was very poor quality and that they recommended redoing the cabinets, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars. I even tried to reach out to Avi's cabinet subcontractors to see if they could help me directly, and they said that they could not help me and that I would need to resolve the issue with Avi (as he provides the warranty.) They even sent me an email showing the credit they issued to his account for the faulty work.
As I said earlier, I wish I could say that I had a good experience working with Avi. But that is not the case. He gave me an ultimatum to take on my job, he tried to charge me for work he did not perform, he falsely claimed I owed him money, he performed poor quality work in the kitchen, and then he refused to stand by his work after receiving $200,000 and a prior good review from me.
