Belfor Property Restoration

At the beginning they were great. They came right away and began a massive drying out process for a leak that started in a third floor bathroom and destroyed a bathroom below it and damaged floor and wall in the living room below that. After the drying out process was over it was a series of delays and broken promises about when they would return to do the remodeling and repair job. Some of the subcontractors were great (the repair of antique wood panelling, and the floor sanding and refinishing), some were pretty bad,(the sheetrockers and the tile guy in the bathroom) and I had hired my own plumber. The guy managing my whole project, Justin, was eventually fired, I think, as the man who owns the company admitted (at the very end, about 7 months later) that he had lied about what and when would things be done. I eventually hired my own wallpaperer as I couldn't count on them coming through. It was really terrible, with days and sometimes a week or more with no one here working on anything and day to day promises that they would be. The owner of the company seems like a very decent and honest guy but the project manager was terrible . In the future, I would hire the owner, Gerry, but only if he were managing the whole project, and, even then, I am not sure that the best way to go would be to hire one company to do the whole thing - as they are probably subject to the busyness of their subcontractors.

When I first contacted Belfor at the recommendation of my plumber at the time (who, as a result of his shoddy work on this job I no longer use), they were responsive and sounded great. The rep said they would have everything done in a few weeks, restored to like condition (this was an insurance job as a toilet on the second floor broke and flooded through our bedroom ceilings, walls, floor and into the basement. As soon as I signed the contract with them, I didn't hear from anyone for a week. I asked what the hold up was and was told they were securing permits. Another week went by, someone else contacts me and says there is no permit needed at this time, the rep was wrong and they would start the work the next day. For the next 10 weeks everything was stop and go. The bathroom tile job was so poorly done by a subcontractor they had to redo it. That same subcontractor did the bamboo floors, which looked good but instead of buying new trim (which the contract called for) they put on the old trim and did not even paint it. The scuff marks and gouge marks in the walls were unbelievable. The floor contractor had to come out several times more to replace the trim and patch the walls. On to the bedroom ceiling, after it was installed and painted, I noticed a wet stain forming. Called my rep and was told it was moisture in the air and they put a fan on it for a weekend. Water stain got bigger, turned out the toilet was installed incorrectly and was leaking. (Side note, plumber also installed vanity poorly - inch gap from wall to back of vanity - they had to redo that as well. Like I said above, we no longer use that plumber.) They had to rip out the entire ceiling and redo it. The first time the ceiling was hung, before the wet stain, it looked fine, flat and smooth. The second time they had to redo the ceiling after the water leak, the drywall was hung or patched so badly, you could see where each individual screw was by the plaster mound over it. After trying to tell me that's how drywall is done (despite the fact it looked fine the first time they did it) we had them redo it a 3rd time. Finally, it was a flat ceiling again. Painting - the painters missed numerous spots, we had to point out spots on the trim, behind doors, around frames that they just skipped over. Also, the contract called for painting the hallway and they tried to tell me it wasn't included. I had to pull out the contract several times to make sure they did all the work they were charging the insurance company for. Finally, the basement. It is the 3rd month into the project and they still haven't gotten to the basement. At this point I was so fed up with them I asked for the invoice and said I would find someone else to finish the work. It took another 2 weeks to get the invoice and several discussions with my rep. The invoices he sent me simply did not add up. I pointed out several mistakes (most in their favor) because I wanted to make sure I was paying the correct amount and I would never have to deal with them again and the rep kept telling me I just didn't understand how the billing software worked. Well, I can understand that 2 + 2 = 4 and 3 + 1 also = 4 and in the end, the totals should match even if the breakdown categories were different (which wasn't the case on this invoice). Finally, after speaking with an office manager and head guy over there, everything was worked out and I was able to pay the bill. I did encounter some nice people there, the office manager, the owner, and one of the site managers. After speaking with some of them it sounds like I did have a problem rep who was fairly new. But still, a lot of their subcontractors (floors, drywall, paint, plumbing) were not good and needed more oversight to ensure the job was done correctly. I did get a great electrician out of the process who we subsequently hired to rewire our entire basement. What made this entire ordeal so much worse was the fact that due to the damage and work in process, we couldn't use our two bedrooms. It was a small 4 room apartment and 2 of the rooms were out of commission for three months. My husband, toddler and I had to sleep on the pull-out in the living room for the entire time. Belfor was well aware of that fact and still took 12 weeks. To say it was an inconvenience is a massive understatement. I would never use this company again and I would not recommend them to anyone.

Those guys were really good. There were excellent at tearing everything down and rebuilding everything. They tore the walls down. They checked the mold. They cleaned everything up. They were excellent on all that stuff. The part that I found that they weren’t so good at was their finish work. Their finish work left little to be desired. With their plaster work, their painting, the finish work, and the tile people that they brought in I thought could have been just a little bit better in a few areas. I noticed that with just a little more professionalism they could have fixed just a little bit nicer. The insurance paid most of the price. They bought in the plumber, and the plumber did the work. I don’t know who the plumber was that they used, and I don’t know who the electrician was that they used. Their forte is to fix areas that have been damaged by water, and they do an excellent job of that, but I think that the people that they bring in for their finish work aren’t as good as Belfor is. They have these subcontractors who come in because they even replaced window sills. They did everything. They were really really good. The problem was those subcontractors that they brought in at the end. I just didn’t think they did as well a job as they could have. In fact, we had a floor put in by one of the subcontractors he brought in, and I had to have the floor changed around because it was kind of like a wooden floor. They had it filling in the opposite directions from the floor and the hallway. It looked like a big T rather than the wood floor going in the same direction as the other wood. They had to change the whole floor around because they just didn’t think. They came right away. They were here everyday. They cleaned up. I would definitely suggest them to anyone who needed this kind of work done. I would definitely tell whoever I would refer them to that they should be aware of who they are bringing in to subcontractors and ask to see those people’s work. They even had someone do our wooden floors standing down with polyurethane. Even though the floors are very shiny, they never got any of the paint or anything off the floor. We had a friend that we acquainted with after this work who happens to do wooden floor business, and the only comment he could make was that they were shiny. They put on so much polyurethane that even several days later some of the polyurethane wasn’t dry, and we would be picking up pieces of it like with a chair and things. One thing I will not do is I will not hire someone who cannot speak my language. My language is English, and I live in the United States. They brought in a whole group of guys. I don’t even know what language they spoke. The days the subcontractors were here no one from Belfor was here. One of the subcontractors broke one of the replacement windows. I went into the bedroom subsequent to when they had to open the windows because they were doing that polyurethane and the sanding and all that kind of stuff. I looked over at the window and the top of the window was completely off. All that was standing there was glass. I pointed out that to Belfor, but we never got a replacement for that.