MERIDIAN HOMES INC

Ordinarily I do not write reviews about contractors that do not make it past the bid process, but since Meridian accepted funds for their "services" I feel compelled to review. We have a small 12x16 kitchen that we wanted to update and make more functional. We were not doing anything structural, just cabinets, counters, flooring and light drywall work. We were contacted by Meridian who offered to take a look and provide and estimate. When the sales team came over, they told us that they required a $1500 deposit for the estimate and that we could apply that deposit towards the cost of the project and that we would receive detailed custom designs from a kitchen consultant for us to keep. We reluctantly gave them a check for the deposit and thought we would get some creative ideas in a detailed design plan. After about four weeks we received the "designs" which were the same layout we had already had with minor changes that we suggested we might like. In the mean time we had two other contractors give us estimates and provided more creative designs at no charge. Ultimately Meridian sent us to a cabinet provider who only used their measurements to lay out a kitchen with their software. When Meridian finally came back with their estimate, it was for $129,000! This estimate was three times the next highest estimate with no explanation as to how they came to that price. Their price was so out of line we took it as an indication that Meridian had no desire to do such a small remodel and asked for our deposit back. We were told they had spent that money on the architect and could not be refunded. By the way, their estimate did not have cost breakdown or mentioned the "deposit". It was an expensive mistake to even talk with Meridan and all we ended up with were some "before" drawings of our kitchen.