Family Ties Contracting

We paid Matt at Family Ties Contracting over $35,000 to renovate our downstairs apartment in an agreed upon maximum of three months. The problems began early, with delays to the start of our project, but we cut him slack because one of his employees was injured in an accident. Not long after, we began getting bills for extras that 1) were already detailed in the contract and 2) were never signed off on. We were clear with Matt from the beginning that we wanted a space that was up to code, it wasn't till months later that we discovered he never even pulled a building permit - is a big "no no" where we live. Our local inspector did not seem happy about this and, in the process of inspections, we discovered other work that needed to be done to bring the apartment up to code, adding to the cost of our project. The problems continued when Matt began to refuse doing work that was clearly in the contract, from small jobs like installing the kitchen sink, to big ones like adding sheetrock to the ceiling to meet code, which was the first thing listed in our contract. The quality of the work was poor, we ended up having to hire a second electrician to install the correct type of outlet for our washer/dryer and a second plumber to fix a leaky sink which was installed. When the project was "finished" it was a mess (see pictures below). Worst of all, the project wasn't actually completed for 11 months - 8 longer than what was in our contracted, which resulted in the loss of a years worth of rental income. We were *constantly* calling them to come back and fix mistakes over this time, with varying degrees of success. To top it off, the owner apparently began spreading rumors about me and my wife because of the difficulties. I wouldn't have even bothered writing this, until I became aware of that. Overall, a totally unprofessional experience. We have spent over $52,000 so far and we are having to finish up by hiring outside contractors. We feel like we were screwed by Family Ties Contracting. It's not just the money and the poor results, but the stress and frustration made for an overall terrible experience.

Great the crew was friendly and took the time to explain things to me and also pointed out some other issues they were noticing. They spend about 5-6 days completing the work and was quick to respond via email, if there were questions.