Harlow L Williams Landscaping

Harlow's designs are excellent. His sons do all the work. They are courteous, efficient, hard working and do an excellent job. The problem with Harlow is his billing. At the onset of the project he gave me an estimate and I gave him 1/3 of the estimate up front. A week into the work, he corners me at home, slaps me on the back and says, "har har har, how about another 6 grand, har har." I wrote him the check. Another week passed and he did the same thing. "Har, har, how about a check for four grand?" I said, "How about an bill?' and did not give him a check. He came back a couple of days later with a piece of paper showing the deduction of the payments already made from the estimated cost. I said, "That's not an invoice!" He said, "well, we get paid every week. You see, that figure I gave you is a do not exceed figure." I said, "If you'd expected to be paid every week, you should have told me so at the beginning and you didn't say anything about a 'do not exceed figure'. I'll pay you when you give me an invoice." Two days ago he shows up with his "invoice". It consists of a series of items; demolition, driveway, slate work, etc.; with figures neatly adjusted to fit the total amount of money he was asking for, no record of materials costs or hour of labor. He seems to pretty much make up the figures off the top of his head and doesn't seem the least bit aware that he should have any kind of accountability. This is appalling behavior and even possibly illegal. As a business practice, it is totally unacceptable and, despite the excellent work, I would recommend against hiring him for this reason alone. On checking his initial bid, he has written "estimate", not "do not exceed".