Great Water Homes

Apologies up-front for slightly disjointed report. The experience has been so bad in so many dimensions that it's difficult to build a coherent, chronological story. So, here's just a part of the story so you, the reader, can graps the gist of it and remember their names--they're still out there and are probably working a different (new) scheme--criminal (fraudulent) activity is never fully repressed. It is under Sharise N Vickers and Chad Vickers is her husband who is the contractor. He contacted our attorney back in January saying that they were filing for bankruptcy and closing their doors, but they have obviously not done that and from what I have seen via the web they are associated with Keystone. They are trying to get away with it. It cost me $250000 for their service. They did not follow the building plan and we did not?t receive any walk through. My husband and I had seen the house that Great Water built for friends and really liked what we saw. We wanted to build a smaller retirement home so we started to work with Great Water in May 2009. He was unable to be approved for a construction loan (warning bellls: what kind of reputable home builderr can't get a loan to build a house?), so we had to get the loan. We had been approved for a construction loan through our Banker who is not local. Mr. Vickers would not work with him and sent us to "his guy" at a local institution. We designed in depth a house that would fit our needs and limit the amount of work and expense required in our retirement. Great Water broke ground in September 2009 and projected a finish date around the end of Oct. beginning of Nov(we were not able to move in until Jan. 2010 and the house was still not finished, although the county did issue a certificate of occupancy as being substantially complete and safe--but it wasn't finished). The house was built out of the proper sequence.: Walls were painted after (only one coat not three as specified in contract), expensive tile flooring laid and not protected. There was quite a bit of rain which left the slab sitting in water so we had wet red clay tracked and ground in to all surfaces, red hand prints on walls, etc. The finish work was never completed. The builder paid the subs up-front before the work was complete. We had a punch list of over 40 items. He would not bring his people back in because it was "during the holidays and you have to understand that." When we tried to contact him about the problems, he just did not care. We have well over 400 e-mails between us and him trying to get him to do the job and to finish the job, but he never did it. Our attorney gave him the opportunity to negotiate by presenting him with a Letter of Demand, but he refused to honor the builder's warranty saying that they were filing for bankruptcy and going out of business. I would never, ever use their services again. We contracted for a custom built energy star certified home at $120.00 per square foot. Because of the code violations with the HVAC installation I contacted the company that supposedly issued the certificate for energy star compliance and the person I spoke with stated that they had not worked with Great Water in years and said they did not certify our home. Further Mr. Vickers stated in an e-mail that he was doing Quality Control work at Fort Gordon during our build and often was not immediately available by phone or e-mail. We are now paying out of pocket to correct all the code violations, incomplete work and damage Great Water left us with. The list is extensive and includes all doors not hung square inside and exterior, a deck that we were charged three thousand dollars for and is warping, pulling away from the house and buckling (we are on a slab and the deck is one foot off the ground I was told a patio would cost twice as much to pour--but the new concrete patio we've now installed cost half of what he charged us for the deck.). Total regrade of the land with an addition of a berm which is required by code and much more. To date we have had to put in an extra $75,000.00 to do what we paid Great Water Construction to do. The worst part is that this was our construction loan. Lesson learned. Do extensive research on all possible contractors including criminal background checks. We received notice on 6/7/11 that Mr. and Mrs. Vickers are personally filing Chapter 7. Mr. Vickers lists himself as President of Proactive Energy Partners in Evans, Georgia. Annual Sales are listed at $950,000.00 so I know he has an income (Interestingly, this is just under the magic $1 million, which would bring some scrutiny--but what business owner isn't proud enough to call his enterprise a "million-dollar business" if it's THAT close?). Sharise Nicole Cunningham Vickers and Jason Chadwick(Chad) Vickers have made no effort to negotiate with us about what they are willing to do and not. It's just been "We're filing for bankruptcy" and nothing else since. It is not clear how individuals with near-million-dollar income are bankrupt--we and our lawyer suspect it is but a ploy to get out from under us because they know they could not stand on the merits of our complaint. One thing we don't understand is why did the Inspector approve the build when there were obvious (to any contractor) plenty of code violations? Was there money under the table? Anything to get the contractor out of the build and money into his pocket? We are both suspicious and concerned that inspectors aren't doing their job adequately. 6/17/11 We continue to find negligent work. All doors were corrected yesterday. All had to be removed and reset. The screws used to attach the hinges to the frame were either too small or had rounded heads. Exterior doors were not hung flush with frame, there were significant gaps and the seal at the bottom was old and completely worn out so that we had water coming in onto hardwood flooring. Brought in painters to assess what needed to be done. They confirmed that the house had only been primed. The filling, caulking, and sanding were not done and the last two coats of paint also need to be applied. Once again this all points to a lack of honesty and integrity. The more I learn in the discovery process the more I believe that this was fraud. Great Water Construction(now working with Keystone had no intention of building the retirement home we took months to plan. That is my personal opinion which I am entitled to express under the law. I apologize for lack of continuity in this report but, there is so much that went wrong that it is overwhelming. None of this should have happened. Some of the Subs used by Great Water for our construction that we would never trust again: Wagaman's HVAC McDuffie Electric Giffin Plumbing Southern Wholesale Siding