BERLIANT BUILDERS INC

The work that Berliant Builders did on my home appears to be high quality work, and I am satisfied with the appearance of the final project. However, my compliments for this contractor end there. The issues with Berliant really come down to poor communication or miscommunication altogether in several areas, including: the timing of the work; cost; what actually was being done, why and how necessary it really was. As to the timing of the work, I was originally told my project would take “2-plus” weeks. There were a couple of things along the way that delayed us by about a week or a little more, but the project still ended up exceeding 8 weeks. As to cost, Berliant would advise of certain additional projects they felt I should do along the way. However, they neglected to advise how much these projects were, how necessary they really were, and most importantly, they neglected to have me sign authorizations to do some of the additional work, probably through mere disorganization or oversight. At the end, of course, they still charged me for all of the work and tried to justify the $11K discrepancy between the final bill and what I had authorized as attributable to “allowances” built into the original contract. Berliant was audacious enough to charge me $11K more than I expected even after I had asked them both via email and in phone conversations on at least three occasions to advise me where I stood with the cost of the project so I could make more informed decisions about additional items as they arose. Never once did I receive this information until my final bill when it was obviously too late. Communication all along was lacking in this way. Further, some of the subcontractors, particularly the painters, that Berliant uses seemed to be understaffed. There were several days altogether when no work whatsoever was performed at the house with no real explanation as to why it wasn’t. On top of these major issues, I also had to clean up cigarette butts that were just discarded in my back yard on about a weekly basis. By the end of the project, I was to the point that I just wanted it to be over with and rolled over and paid them the money so that I could move on with my life.