DeckNY

My Mother contracted this guy to build her deck. He was awful!
Do not use his services at all.
My mom (a 65yd women) contracted him in April 2012 to build a small deck to replace a broken one.
This man wanted her to go and get him the survey of the property for him and take the project plans and submit them for him. That is his job as a contractor.
Then he never stared the project once everything was approved. she called him and he said «I am on vacation for 2 weeks» and 2 months go by) and she calls him asking what is going on. The project finally gets started the very end of September. 5 months after she hired him. Once it was started she found out the guy Robert Marshal does not come do the work himself he sends other people to do it for him. (so why should vacation stop other people from working on her deck?)
They built up to the point of a deck without a railing (so it was unusable) November goes by (he’s on vacation again) December goes by still no one to finish it.
mean while in October this guy harasses my mom calling her everyday «Where’s my $ 10,000 check?» «Where’s my check», «Where’s my check» ‚“Where’s my check”, «Where’s my check» She told him she was getting it from her lawyer. He gets the check and doesn’t come by for another 3 months.
She had asked him then to make a brick pathway (which cost another $ 3,000) and he harassed her wanted the payment up front.
she gave him another check.
finally February they put the railing in and it is done (it looked nice but 8 months?)
then I find out from my mom he wants another $ 3,000 check for the railing because «he got it from someone different that he doesn’t normaly use»
She told me at the beginning he asked what kind of railing she would like and he told her that he thought a metal one would look better then a wood one. He didn’t give any price differences for materials, nor did he show her pictures of the railing before installing it.
Now I have to find her contract to see if her quoted $ 10,000 price was excluding a railing. Because to me it should be in the quoted price because you can’t even use a deck without a railing it’s illegal. (this was a deck with stairs leading up to it to the front door)
He took forever to start forever to finish, wanted all the money before the deck was even finished.
Now it is like surprise! you have to pay for the railing separately another $ 3,000.
I told my mom not to pay it. this guy basically held an old lady hostage saying I won’t finish till you give me another check. even my mothers lawyer told her that she should not pay everything up front.
This guy just keeps wanting more and more money, and takes forever to finish anything.
(also the guys working for him would leave garbage and behind from the work, and they would fill my mothers trash bins up with their materials making it so she could not throw out her own garbage.)