Ball, Arthur

We contracted with Arthur Ball Construction to build a new home in Attala county, Mississippi. The agreed upon price for this construction was $235,000.00 and any changes would or could affect that total.  Per the contract, this construction would be done in a timely manner deemed by us, weather permitting.

     The builder (Arthur Ball Construction) agreed to provide the necessary labor, tools, equipment and other services needed to construct said house.  Upon start of construction, a fee of $50,000.00 would be required. He received the first draw of $50,000 from the construction loan and began construction in September 2016. He assured us that he would be able to complete the construction (weather permitting) between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2016. He started working on the house and completed the cinder block framing for the basement. He hired a contractor to push the dirt around the basement, but that contractor hit the retaining wall with his equipment and caused extensive damaged to the foundation. Ball then had to tear the basement down completely and rebuild it. When he rebuilt the basement, he changed the dimensions and made it larger than the original plan. Progress on the house was slow to sometimes non-existent but he continued to ask for and receive draws from the construction loan. He came to see us on October 23, 2017, and after 13 months of construction and all the money, he advised us that he would not be able to complete the house and he needed more money. He told us that he was not able to recoup his losses for the damage to the basement and he had even tried to get a loan. He suggested that we sue him and hopefully his insurance would pay. He also left us with a $21,000 material bill with a local hardware store. At that time, the roof was still open and he had installed the trusses incorrectly so he could not find a roofer who would agree to do the shingles. The house stayed open for so long that there was extensive water damage to most of the wood he installed, both inside & outside. The concrete floors were so bad that extensive leveling work had to be done before any kind of flooring could be installed. The concrete floor in the master bedroom had to be busted up and repoured to try to level and smooth it enough for flooring. Our $3100 mahogany front door was damaged when it was installed by his workers. He installed 7 windows that were just barely put in place. We discovered that a wall for the stairway that he installed only had 1 nail in it so that wall and the door literally fell down when a worker leaned on it. Absolutely every bit of the work that he did was a disaster. There was nothing square in the entire house. Every interior wall stud was not installed at 16 inch on center so the insulation did not fit and extra studs had to be installed throughout the entire house. The upstairs flooring was so damaged from the weather that it too had to be replaced. We hired a new builder, but it has cost us a fortune just to repair the mess he left and try to move forward and complete our house. He took our retirement dream home and turned it into a nightmare. We worked hard all our lives and saved and planned for our retirement. The original cost to build of $230.000, thanks to him, has cost us $450,000 to complete. After 20 months, we have finally moved into our house but there is still a lot of work to be done, including exterior painting and installing the exterior stone veneers. Thanks to Arthur Ball, we have depleted our life savings and we will have to spend the rest of our lives trying to repay the loan for this house. I wish we had never even heard of Arthur Ball. If I knew then what I know now, he definitely would not have been selected as our contractor. I would not recommend Arthur Ball to anyone for anything. He needs to stop working as a builder and the state should revoke his contractor license.