We have the misfortune of still being in the fallout of having Trace Antcliff and Lifetime Home…read moreProducts do a home remodel project for us. We hope sharing our experience can help others avoid a similar horrible experience. We thought we had done our research after getting Lifetime Home Products' information from a local lumber supply, reading reviews online etc. We could not have been more wrong - the deeper we dug after starting to have red flags pop up, the more concerned we became and unfortunately, those concerns are our reality now. We have been informed of more and more people that have had similar issues and are also living this nightmare - a search through LARA's (Michigan department of licensing and regulatory affairs) website at past complaints, licensing, etc is very eye opening and we highly encourage everyone do that before hiring Lifetime Home Products and anyone working with them.
Consider researching online, and calling around, and looking at LARA, not just Lifetime Home Products, but also Lifetime Home Products LLC, Trace (Tracy) Antcliff and Anthony Rainko. Anthony Rainko is supposed to be the managing member of the company per our contract and whose license is attached to the company and used....never once did we see, work with, or interact with him for our project. Through all the review sites you can as well through the formal Michigan licensing site - LARA (sure wish we knew about that site before we began this nightmare!). We hope you do not do what we did and write off the bad reviews as a few bad apples.
We kept telling ourselves over the course of the project that Trace and the crew would resolve the raised issues along the way and meet our expectations as well as industry standards. We were underwhelmed as the "punch list" (incomplete/unsatisfactory items) seemed to be ever growing instead of shrinking, and left with an incomplete project with code violations and poor workmanship. Highlights (if you can call them highlights) from our experience are below.
Through the course of our project, we had 2 liens placed against our home. The first lien was from Trace not paying a supplier. While it did eventually get removed, this was only after Trace lying to us telling us it had been paid despite the supplier verifying with us numerous times it had not been paid and us following up daily after learning of these lies to ensure it was paid. The second lien, from one of the subcontractors on the projects is still unresolved. This is despite Trace telling us both verbally and in writing it would be paid and removed. To our dismay and consternation, this was also paired with a formal complaint via LARA against Trace by that subcontractor. Trace not paying these suppliers/subs was despite getting a large deposit from us, and weekly payments from us through the course of the project all either on or before dates agreed.
In addition, multiple times Trace informed us of subs quitting or being fired (drywallers, painter, electrician, HVAC subcontractor, general workers, and the one that was most alarming to us, just before work began, the person that was supposed to be our project lead and main contact vs Trace, was instead going to be launching a restaurant). It was not a good feeling to be kicking off and mid-project and not having a stable, consistent crew to complete it. As the project neared what we hoped was completion, Trace then tried to add close to $10K to the final payment amount. This is after he tried to bully us into making the final payment on the project without final inspections being passed, a lien still against our home, the project incomplete, and incomplete multi-page "punch list".
Despite explicitly telling us that any changes would be handled via a change order so there was no confusion (per the contract), a paper trail and having a full project bid, we were asked multiple times in the project for additional funds to cover "overages" by subcontractors after work was completed and no change order was presented for why this would all of a sudden cost more than the scoped work and bid.
In our life experiences, contracts are meant to protect both parties of a project - unfortunately, in our experience with Lifetime Home Products, Trace does not follow his own contract. This has led to headaches and thousands in legal fees for us as we have worked to untangle this mess.
Our nightmare has only continued since Trace told us the project was complete when it wasn't anywhere near finished and still isn't.
