Genuine Home Builders

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• By Karl B.

  February 27, 2023

  Post Ian repairs

  If you are thinking about hiring Genuine Home Builders as your contractor, DON'T. First, I want to give you my background, so you have an understanding from what I am basing this on. I am a commercial contractor from a northern state, and I have been in the construction trades for over 55 years. I worked my up as a union tradesman (laborer, laborer foreman, carpenter, carpenter foreman, superintendent to eventually becoming an owner. So I have extensive construction knowledge and experience. I was also a construction arbitrator for American Arbitration Association for over 20 years. We hired Genuine Home Builders to rebuild 7 of our 8 ground floor units and our common area damaged from hurricane Ian. On October 22, 2022, we signed contracts with Genuine Home Builders [GHB] with a promise, from Kim Todd, that their architect would work on the drawings over that weekend, and they would be applying for our permits the following Monday, October 24, 2022. GHB did not apply for permits until November 17th which were sent back for correction 3 times and there would have been a 4th if I had contacted the building department. I could go into more detail here, but I think you get the idea. With the project dragging on so long, we requested weekly progress meetings only to find out that we were being charged for Lee (their superintendent), Steve Todd and Kim Todd to attend. This wouldn’t have been so bad, accept that this amounted to $285/hr plus 20% markup for a total of $342/hr to attend meetings created by their lack of progress. When we asked for what certain aspects costs were, either we never got them or, like the drywall, it took over a week almost two. When Kim finally gave me their price for replacing the drywall it was $6.90/s.f. plus their 20% markup making it $8.28/s.f. I checked local pricing to find out what the going rates were, and it was from $4.50 to $5.35 (including prime paint)/s.f. Also, you need to watch out as they charge $200.00 for each invoice they write (it’s in the contract). To show how little GHB really knows about construction, their lack of common sense and the inability to properly oversee their projects. I questioned Lee, Steve and Kim as to why the electrician, in a couple of our units, were running MC (metal clad cable) in lieu of reusing the existing conduit. Lee said because it was faster. When questioning this, Lee said well that is what their electrician told him and who was he to question them. I explained, if you just thought about it, you would understand this simply isn’t true. You can pull new wires in the existing conduit as you pull the old ones out, whereas MC you have to cut access holes in the walls and ceilings and snake it through. This shows Genuine Home Builders’ lack of knowledge, let alone common sense. I ended out terminating my contract with Genuine Home Bidders for breach of contract and cause. When billing against my deposit the electrician and Genuine Home Builders charged me $2,200.00 sighting “Replaced Range wire to panel replaced Range outlet $1,250.00” (this amounted to 3 wires less than 15' and they didn’t supply any outlet I did), “Troubleshoot all electrical in unit $475.00 (this wasn’t required nor requested as my electrical was never underwater)” and “Wire new hot water heater" (this never happened and as of my writing this I still don’t have a new hotwater heater so how did they wire it?). This is something Genuine Home Builders should have caught if they were managing the job properly. In turn, I had to point it out and when I did, they dropped the $2,200.00 plus GHB’s $440.00 markup. Kim Todd convinced me as I fell for what I thought to be honesty, sincerity and integrity, but I have no one to blame but myself. Kim Todd is very smooth talking and convincing. As one of our unfortunate members said, “Kim is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  A final note. I hired another contractor, and they got permits in 17 days vs over 3 months.

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