My 1st Long Distance Brrrr in Georgia..and troubles along the way

[Karen Kalina]

My husband and I bought an investment property in Georgia. Oct 2018. We are long distance investors since our local market doesn’t offer the returns we are looking for. We have had a long and expensive reno project that is still not over. Details are below. Bottom line how do I manage contractors better? Can I demand a credit for contractors expensive mistakes and crazy long delays even though its not specified in the contract? Any advice or input would be appreciated.

Details:

Price 336k for 4 units - Two 1 beds/1 bath and Two 2 beds/3 beds -1 bath 

Outdoor Rehab Fees- 50k

Interior Rehab fees - 25k (separate contractor whom we are happy with)

Estimated ARV- 550K - very conservative probably closer to 600 but new to this market so underestimating.

Outdoor - replace and renovate all siding. There was significant water damage on 2 exterior walls that resulted in soft sheetrock in doors. New siding, new sheathing, sister new slat board, repair 36 single pane wood windows (historic area so we can’t replace), rebuild porch, new rails on front and paint entire exterior.

This company has overpromised and under delivered from the get go. They didn’t plan accordingly and they were short staffed the entire time.

Project Summary:

COA was approved on Jan 10th the company said project will start 2-3 days. They didn’t plan accordingly so we had to wait 2 weeks.

Official start date 1/29- Contractor estimated 4 weeks for work. We estimated 6 weeks. We are now on week 9.

They wanted a specific foreman on the job. Once he started he put 2 guys on the job and for the first 4 weeks only came to the site the 1 day a week I was visiting.

Then, 1 of the 2 guys on the job fell through the neighbor’s window due to unstable scaffolding they erected. The guy is fine from my understanding. But now we only had 1 person working. It took them 4 weeks to replace the neighbor’s window after constant requests from us – that’s not how we wanted to start our relationship.

The following week, they needed to shut the power to fix the siding behind the electric meters. They originally assured us an electrician would do this properly. Since the foreman was never there when Georgia Power came to reconnect, the Georgia Power guy saw a non electrician put the lugs back in the meter and wouldn’t reconnect and notated our account. Power was off for 2 weeks until they coordinated the promised electrician to do it properly. So they were delayed because they were working on a generator, and everything slowed down.

During the time power was shut off they left the front window completely open and someone broke in and stole their generator. –After I was constantly harassing them to close the windows daily.

Finally at week 6 (after we paid the first 1/3, and the second 1/3) they decided to bring a whole new crew. This new crew started on week 7 since we were told they were come down from Ohio.

They were great but at week 8 the city shut our entire site down. We found out they never filed ANY of the permits that they said would be filed.

At this point, our job site is shut down for a full week. They claimed they submitted the filing but when we call the Building Department there aren’t any applications for permits in the system.

I would like to fire them but we paid them 66% of the job but only 40%-50% is complete. We actually did our due diligence and got a few different quotes. They had excellent reviews and were NOT the cheapest. We went with them because of their reviews and experience and professionalism that they sold us.

So, Should I fire them? I have so many lessons learned here thus far….but how do I get them to expedite this project??? Whats my recourse if any?

Before Pic:

Before Porch

Week 4

Week 6