Our experience with Don Shulman, owner and president of Realty Development Associates has been a nightmare. In February 2012, we entrusted him with our money to build our retirement home. When it came time to pay subcontractors, our money was gone and Don Shulman could not or would not tell us what happened to it.
From the start, the entire process with Don was what I would call painful. As soon as we made that initial deposit, things started going downhill. He knew what we wanted in our house, but the house he was selling us was not going to have many items we wanted unless we upgraded and added more cost to the contract. In his sales pitch, when we suggested many items we wanted, he would agree that could be done. We waited for months for changes to the plans and answers to questions. In an effort to get plans from the engineer, we paid him directly. For all those months when we were trying to resolve many issues, Don Shulman and RDA had our 25% deposit. Or we should say he used our 25% deposit elsewhere. The plan laid out by RDA was that we were to be in our home by August.
In August, the foundation and excavating started. Don gave checks to two subcontractors that were returned because of insufficient funds. To keep things moving along, we began paying the subcontractors directly. We had already paid Realty Development Associates the money for these subcontractors, however, Don Shulman would not or could not tell us where that money went. We tried to work things out with Don, but it was not going anywhere. In our opinion, he would say anything to try and get you to pay him more money. He was very uncooperative in giving us information we considered necessary. We terminated the relationship and requested a refund. He has not responded to our request for refund made on October 31, 2012. We estimate only a small portion of our deposit was actually spent on costs for our home. We are currently working on trying to finish our dream home.
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