Property Forensics

On September 30, 2013 we entered into an agreement with Kim Darigan of Property Forensics for a Property Assessment of the guest house bathroom issue at our home. We had been cited for having a shower in a building that was designated as a Recreation Room/​Not for Permanent Occupancy and had had no luck dealing with the city Building Department. We had tried every which way to get approval for the offending shower to be walled off, turned into storage, etc. so that the entire bathroom did not have to be demolished (sink and toilet are allowed).
We met with Kim on October 25^th to discuss our situation and he said he thought there was a 90% chance he could find a way to get the shower legally «decommissioned» without the expense and headache of a total demo job, and that he would get back to us in a week. Two weeks after our meeting we sent him an email inquiring about his progress. We received no response. Three weeks after our meeting we left a message on his office voice mail inquiring as to whether he needed more information from us and the status of his evaluation of our property. We received no return phone call. During the fourth week after our meeting two voice mails were left on his cell phone. Finally on November 20^th he sent us an email indicating that he had been «under the weather» for the last few days and that he’d get back to us the next morning. He never contacted us.
Two months have gone by without a word from him. During our October meeting we were left with a favorable impression of Kim, his business, and his expertise. Now it looks to us like he was just one more money pit in the horrible ordeal with our guest house (we had the tenant from hell turn us in and were required to pay relocation money to get the rhymes-​with-​witch out of the unit she rented for nine months; the kitchen also had to be demolished). We paid him $ 700 for his expertise and our agreement with him was supposed to have resulted in a «concise verbal report of his observations of potential obstacles and options for the next steps to take». Instead we got no feedback whatsoever.
We have no idea if he just took our money and went his merry way, or whether he actually did do research and talk to the permit folks on our behalf and then didn’t have the balls to call us back and say «sorry folks, I tried». That’s all it would have taken — get back to us and say he couldn’t make any headway either. Instead he has our $ 700 and we have nothing to show for it.