Friday, February 8, 2013

The Glasser-Proctor's Story


We owned land in Provincetown, MA that we’d tried selling for several years to no avail.  In early 2011, we decided that we would develop the property rather than continue to try to sell.  We wanted to use Westchester Modular since we were quite familiar with them (their factory is about 12 miles north of our home in Patterson, NY and we’d gone on their tour several times).  We learned that Realty Development Associates was the authorized Westchester Modular contractor for Cape Cod and we met with them several times before entering into a contract to build.  

We had hoped to build condominiums but due to the town’s scale restrictions, we couldn’t build anything quite so large.  Working with Don Schulman, the owner of RDA, we came up with the idea of subdividing the property to build three single family homes.  RDA worked with a local engineer to divide the property while we worked with RDA to design the houses we wanted to build.  In the spring of 2011, we signed a contract with RDA to build the first of the 3 homes.  

The house was delivered to the site in September 2011.  We looked forward to all that had been promised us and expected, even with perhaps a few delays, that the house would be finished and on the market sometime that winter or certainly by spring.

Work began on the interior of the house and then the Halloween snow storm hit which caused a delay in getting a utility pole installed and electricity to the house.  RDA used that storm as an excuse the entire winter for not making any significant progress on the house.  In January 2012 we received an invoice from RDA for upgrades we made to our selection of flooring, tiles & countertops and were told the funds were needed right away because of the lead time in obtaining the materials.  This was the first time we had seen the additional costs for materials we had picked out over 4 months earlier and we were quite stunned by the increased cost.  We would have preferred to then pick out less expensive upgrades but didn’t want to delay the project any longer, so we paid RDA with the understanding that the funds would be turned over to the subcontractor to order the materials.  We learned many months later that the sub-contractor ordered the materials but were never paid anything by RDA.  As time went on we began questioning, then complaining, regularly to RDA about the lack of progress.  Most of the time, since Don was seldom accessible, we dealt with his associate, Bill D’Antonio.  We were constantly given excuses and then promises.  Then, in April 2012, Don met us at the house and requested a $26,000 advance promising to get the house completely finished in 30 days.  Though that was about the same amount still left on our construction loan, we were extremely uncomfortable about the request.  We felt we were, as the expression goes, “caught between a rock and a hard place”.  Rather than just advancing the money to RDA we raised a number of issues including asking about paying the subs directly and we wanted assurances the money would be spent only our house.  Don had an answer for every issue we raised.  Thinking that finally the house would be completed, but against our better judgment, we agreed to advance $18,000 and signed an agreement with RDA on May 9, 2012 that the house would be completed within 30 days and that RDA would incur a $200.00/day penalty for every day beyond the 30 days that the house was not completed.  

For the next several months, through the spring and summer, almost nothing of significance happened.  We discovered that subs weren’t getting paid – electricians, plumbers, painters.  The company that had our flooring, countertops and tile wouldn’t do the work because RDA hadn’t paid for the materials we had paid for back in January.   Fireplaces were installed, and then removed by the sub for non-payment.  Painters were not paid (they recently took RDA to small claims court - and won).  Deck materials were delivered, and then removed.  Somehow RDA convinced the subcontractor to install our countertops, but ultimately we had to pay for them (yet again!) to avoid a lien being placed on the house.  By this point it had become virtually impossible to reach anyone at RDA for answers.

Though we weren’t there, our Provincetown realtor, a dear friend, checked on the house almost daily and there was virtually never any workers there despite constant promises from RDA.  Because of all the delays, the construction loan expired and became a mortgage requiring interest and principal payments of nearly $2,300/month.  

Finally in September 2012 (a full year after the modular boxes were delivered), we had had enough and, through our attorney, notified RDA that they were not to return to the construction site.

It then took a couple of months to find a reputable construction company willing to finish the house and we discovered far more hadn’t been done than we realized.  The air conditioning had never been installed, there was no septic system and the water had not been connected to the street.  We are paying the new company over $100,000 to complete the house!   That’s $100,000 that we’d already paid RDA!  Here it is now the winter of 2013, and the house still isn’t finished.    

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