Home Solutions

Ray Smith advertised and presented himself to me as a licensed, bonded, insured General Contractor. I contracted him to do several jobs that he represented were "easy" and would not cost too much or take too long. The terms were 15% up front and the rest at job completion. I had quite a lot of issues with his lack or work ethic as far as showing up late or not at all on some days, not having the proper tools, not doing any of the work himself, different workers every day, lots and lots of excuses. The largest job I hired him for was to level the floors of my house. He told me he had lots of experience and it was an easy job. He took weeks longer than he said it would take. HE kept contradicting himself about what he was finding and what needed to be done. I asked him several times if he knew what he was doing, and that if he did not, he could walk away with no repercussions. He assured me he had 35 years of experience leveling floors and always had a good explanation for what he was doing. After he had already started pouring piers, he told me he had to cut a hole in my floor to finish. He told me it would be out of the way and easily repaired when done. When I went down to check, he had cut several large holes in my den floor which is a epoxy-resin (Torgonol, $27 per square foot) finish and cannot be easily repaired. When he said the job was done, the floors were more uneven than before. He made a lot of excuses about why that was. He had asked for most of the money early so he could "pay his guys", so I did not have much money in balance I could hold to make him finish the job right, and I had come to realize he was not competent to finish the job right. I paid the remainder for the work we had contracted (over $10K total) and told him I just wanted him to leave. He was angry because he felt I had promised him future work and he told me he had actually lost money on the work he had done because he would make it up on future work. I pointed out he had taken over $6K of my money to level the floors and the floors were still not level and sent him away. His workers contacted me over the next couple of days and wanted money. They told me that Ray Smith told them I had not paid him. I showed them proof that I had paid Ray Smith everything we had agreed to. They considered filing a lien against my house, but I gave them additional work to try and make things right. It is my understanding they plan to take Ray Smith to court for the remainder of their wages. In retaliation for firing him, Ray Smith called the bank I was working with to get a refinance in order to pay for the remaining work on the house. HE told the bank that my roof was in danger of collapse and was a safety risk. As a result, the bank held up the mortgage and I was forced to pay a structural engineer to go and inspect the roof and write a report for the bank. The structural engineer reported the roof was fine (Ray Smith lied to the bank) and he also informed me that the work Ray Smith did to my foundation actually hurt my house by cracking walls and knocking the roof line out of level. I essentially paid Ray Smith to destroy my floor and damage my foundation and walls and roof. I do not yet know what the total cost to repair will be, but I do not want Ray Smith to do this to anyone else. After all this happened, I researched and found there is quite a lot of negative information about Ray Smith on the Internet to include with the Better Business Bureau, ripoff.com, and several other sites. I can't believe that this man has been able to represent himself as a General Contractor for so many years and have caused so much ruin. Please stop him.