SAFE HARBOUR HOMES LLC

unknown

Ms. Lednum and her staff are fantastic salespeople. I have no experience in hiring a contractor, and trusted her with my business. When hired, Ms. Lednum was aware of a very strict deadline for construction completion, which was approximately 5 months from the date of hire. I was assured that the company was comfortable doing commercial work, and was comfortable doing work in my county. Permits were not obtained, and appropriate professionals were not consulted (engineers, architects) despite my repeated inquiries about their necessity. I was assured that everything would be done in a timely and professional manner. Construction was started without permits, and was subsequently shut down by the county. Several times a week for over 3 months I tried to get answers on what to do next, how I could help, what we were going to do. Ms. Lednum assured me that everything was under control. The 'architect' that was subsequently hired by Ms. Lednum was not really an architect, but an interior designer. As my deadline quickly approached (ie, less than 5 weeks until I had to move), there was still no further progress to acquire appropriate permits, I fired Safe Harbour and hired a new contractor. A county inspector also came to help me figure out what the best next steps would be. Come to find out, the minimal construction that had already been done by Safe Harbour was not up to code for a commercial property. If I had stuck with Safe Harbour and their plans, there is no way my business would have opened anywhere close to when we were supposed to open, costing me thousands of dollars per day. Furthermore, her estimate for the completion of the project was 50% of what the actual cost was. I based my loan application on this incorrect information. I would like to believe that Ms. Lednum was just in over her head with this project, however, this has been her business for years and despite being in a different county than the one in which she normally works, I would expect her to have some degree of competence in how things work. If not, 5 months is plenty of time to figure out what is required. When asked about why we were unable to get permits, Ms. Lednum repeatedly told me that the county rules were ridiculous and unnecessary. As far as I'm concerned, rules are rules, they are public information, and we needed to follow those rules to advance the project. I believe that Ms. Lednum has a significant conflict of interest being both a realtor as well as a contractor. The contracting license for Safe Harbor is in someone's name I've never heard of, let alone met. Hindsight is 20/20, but this is a pretty shady operation. Finally, after being terminated, Ms. Lednum's demeanor toward me became incredibly rude and aggressive, culminating with her coming to my current place of business and creating quite a scene in front of my clients, including dropping the 'f' word, threatening me with litigation if I didn't sign something releasing her from any liability.