Artistic Design Build Inc

The project started off reasonably, but went farther and farther south as the project went on, and ended with threats of lawsuits and undone work. The work that was done was a mixed bag There were several points where the work was clearly done half-heartedly (for example, when they put my hot water heating system back together there were parts left over...meaning they'd left things out), but others where the work was perfectly fine. I would rate the work overall as a "c"...some things were fine, others fairly poor. Tom's management, communication, and professionalism, on the other hand, were fairly consistently poor. On the management of the work, there were multiple cases where Tom would send me a message saying that a particular stage was done, and asking me to leave him payment for that stage at my house...however, when I would go by the house, I would see that the work had not been done completely. When I would push back to Tom that the stage was clearly not actually done, he handled this fairly badly: in one case he said that the work I was asking for was not in the contract (despite my explicit requests to him to make sure it was quoted that way when the contract started), so I need to pay him more; in another case he insisted that the work had been done, despite clear evidence that it had not been (he stood in front of me and insisted that a hardwood floor had 3 coats of polyurethane, despite clear evidence that the polyurethane application had stopped partway down the hallway). Tom's communication was also quite poor. I had several situations where I would ask Tom a question via email, and then have to send him a reminder several days later to ask if he'd gotten the first email. Once or twice for that sort of thing is okay, but it happened many, many times. In one case, I asked Tom for an estimate for the cost of a contract modification 5 times in February/March, and he finally gave me the estimate in June. I also had a lot of trouble getting consistent scheduling or time estimates from Tom. In the middle of the job, a period of 3-4 weeks went by with almost no work occurring at my house (I think workmen came by at most 4 times during that 3-4 week period). Tom's end date estimates, when I could get them were almost pure fiction (in May Tom gave me an end date estimate of June, in June he gave me an estimate July...the work was not actually completed until mid-August). Tom consistently refused to give me a schedule of when work was happening, despite multiple requests, and ignored multiple requests to even tell me what order work was happening in. Lastly, at the end of the contract, Tom presented me with an extra bill for almost $4,000 in charges I had not approved of, and we had not agreed on (including one fee that he had agreed not to charge me two months earlier), but he said that I had the "material benefit of" and therefore needed to pay for. Tom refused to continue work unless I paid those, and repeatedly threatened to take me to court for contesting these charges. In the end, I had to hire a second contractor to finish the work that Tom had left undone, done wrong, or done poorly. I would strongly recommend against hiring Tom or Artistic Design Build. If you do hire him, check his default contract very carefully. Tom was recently involved in a lawsuit where he was found guilty of "negligent mis-representation" for the layout and organization of his standard contract. There are several terms on his contract that are on the back of a triplicate form, so you will never see them unless you know to look for them. Those terms are incredibly one-sided. Don't sign that contract without reading it (all sides of all pages) very carefully.

OK, here goes... On August 6, 2007 we signed a contract with Mr. Thomas J. Mammen, owner of Artistic Design Build, Inc., for a home renovation project. The scope of this project includes a new master bedroom (with bathroom), a new study, a new powder room, a new deck, and the enlargement of our kitchen (which involved the gutting of the existing kitchen). The contract stated that work would be completed in 20 ? 24 weeks after the start of the project. Work commenced on this project on December 10, 2007, and is not yet complete (as of October 2009)! We did not have a kitchen for more than a year (from late January 2008 through early February 2009), and it is still not fully functional. Mr. Mammen?s unprofessional and unethical behavior has not been limited to the unacceptable delay and eventual abandonment of our project. In addition, he has added (or tried to add) numerous unjustifiable charges to our invoices. These charges have included the cost to correct a subcontractor?s noncompliance with code (Mr. Mammen falsely claimed that the code requirements had recently changed), costs to fix work damaged by a subcontractor in an unauthorized (i.e., not authorized by us) and totally unnecessary ?discovery? operation, and inappropriate ?change order? fees that are not consistent with the contract. Moreover, he tried to charge us additional rental fees for a dumpster and portable toilet, claiming that we had delayed the project. As of November 2008 many items were still not complete, including vinyl siding (the addition?s exterior walls were covered with only Tyvek for more than ten months!), granite counter tops, bathroom tile, bathroom and powder room fixtures, etc. None of the new plumbing was yet functional. Between late November and early December 2008 we negotiated with Mr. Mammen what we hoped would be a completion to our project. A list of items to be completed was agreed to, along with a cost of completion and a firm completion date of February 10, 2009. Work finally resumed on approximately December 10, 2008 after a hiatus of approximately two months during which little work was done because Mr. Mammen refused to send work crews. When we left our house on February 18th for an extended overseas trip (about which we had informed Mr. Mammen in November), not only was the work not complete as had been promised, but moreover, the dumpster overflowing with trash was still in our front yard and construction materials were (and, in fact, still are) scattered all over our property. On February 17, 2009 (the day we last saw him), Mr. Mammen demanded full payment of the remaining balance agreed to in December 2008, falsely claiming that the work was ?substantially complete.? The fact that the work is NOT to this day ?substantially complete? is evident from the list of unfinished work items prepared by Mr. Mammen?s project manager, as well as our own list of numerous uncompleted items that are part of Mr. Mammen?s contractual obligations. This list constitutes much more than the expected ?punch list? items that would normally have to be finished after substantial completion. For example, the interior of the house is not yet ready for painting or window treatments, and therefore it is not yet inhabitable. Although we owed Mr. Mammen absolutely nothing on February 17, 2009 (since the contract clearly states that final payment is not due until substantial completion), as a good-faith gesture we offered to pay him most of the balance, with the remainder to be paid upon total completion of his work. He reluctantly accepted our check. By this point, we had already paid him approximately 99% of the entire amount that would be due if and when the work is completed. In early March 2009, while overseas, we received email from Mr. Mammen in which he claimed that we were in default of the contract and threatened to file a lien against our property. Moreover, he had added additional illegitimate ?change-order fees? to the supposedly final bill that we had received in January. On April 20, 2009, while still overseas, we sent Mr. Mammen an email indicating that work could resume on or about May 11, 2009. We did not receive a reply; in fact, we have not heard directly from Mr. Mammen since his letter of March 6, 2009. We called Mr. Mammen?s project manager on (or about) May 7, 2009 to discuss resumption of the work on our home, and on May 8, 2009 we received a letter from Mr. Mammen?s attorney in which he threatened to file a lien against our property if we did not pay the full amount claimed by Mr. Mammen, which had by then mysteriously grown further. We have filed complaints against Mr. Mammen (and Artistic Design Build, Inc.) with the Maryland Home Improvement Commission (MHIC), Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection (MC OCP), and the Better Business Bureau (BBB). In his responses to the latter two agencies, Mr. Mammen?s attorney falsely claimed that the job is ?substantially complete,? and he alleged that we (the homeowners) have been responsible for the delays that have plagued the project. (We have not yet seen Mr. Mammen?s response to MHIC.) In our detailed replies to the MC OCP and BBB regarding the attorney?s numerous false claims and allegations, we listed (and provided photographic evidence of) many significant items that have not yet been completed, thereby clearly demonstrating that the job is not yet substantially complete. Moreover, we provided excerpts from correspondence that clearly demonstrate that Mr. Mammen greatly delayed our project and added inappropriate charges. During approximately the first four months of the project, the pace of progress was quite satisfactory, but we did have a number of complaints even in those early stages. For example, the roofers came to install the new roof when the temperature was 18 degrees Fahrenheit. We sent them away. We received no apology from Mr. Mammen for this violation of good construction practice, which likely would have voided our warranty from the manufacturer of the shingles, as well as damaged our existing roof. Another issue is that we were never consulted regarding the way our kitchen?s sliding door would open; it was installed contrary to our wishes, with no remedy offered other than to pay the entire cost of a new door. These problems, although annoying, were minor compared to the difficulties we later faced. We were willing to accept some disappointments as long as the quality of the work was good and the pace of work kept more-or-less to schedule. However, as time passed, Mr. Mammen paid little attention to our job and rarely sent work crews, finally abandoning the job altogether after receiving virtually the entire amount that would be owed if and when the job is complete. Overall, the quality of much of the work performed by Artistic Design Build was very good. However, a number of items were done poorly, and many weren?t completed as we have already noted. Many more pages would be needed to fully describe Mr. Mammen?s unprofessional and unethical behavior. In addition, we have a pile of documenting emails and photos.