Lattimore Builders

This builder was a nightmare. We agreed to build the house for a set price and now he is wanting an additional $30,000 for extra charges never discussed. We constantly had to stay behind the builder since he was constantly not following the plan. The first week of construction, I come out to find a large crawlspace area where my carport was going. Come to find out he had decided to put my laundry room in the carport instead of the other end of the house because he thought it would be better without even asking me. I was afraid to fill the crawlspace hole back in since I was afraid my concrete in the carport would crack in this area, so I let him go ahead and build the laundry room there. Now he is saying it was a change that that I made and is trying to charge me for his goof. I was constantly finding doors would not be framed to the sizes on the plan which made buying doors a pain since we had to measure everyone to see what size he decided he was going to put where. We gave him a book with the window measurements for double hung windows which was on the plan but instead he mistaken used the measurements for casements windows. Which he has now decided that we should pay for labor to fix his mistake. We found the front door and left hand windows were off by 6 foot according to the plan and asked them to fix it. After a bunch of grumbling about how the upstairs windows would not match up, he finally realized that I was correct and had to fix the issue. We planned to have the steps changed from a U shape as show on the plans to a set of curved steps done by a professional stair company paid for out of pocket without deducting from his quote for not having to build steps. We asked him not to put in any steps and to just use the ladder we provided to get to the next floor since we were going to put in curved stairs once framing was done. But he insisted that he needed a temporary set to get to the next floor for his convenience. So we allowed him to build a temporary set of steps since they were included in his original framing costs anyways. Now he is charging us for a temporary set of steps on top of what he priced us for a finished set in the original framing quote. He decided he wanted to change the front porch roof pitch without even discussing it with me and now the roof line on my front porch is lower that the rest of the house and looks very awkward. Also the archway brickwork I paid extra for on the front door is now covered over partially due to his change. I have walls that are twisted, a window was broken out during construction and a chunk of concrete was chipped off my carport from his equipment. He punched a hole through a wall by running into my house with his equipment and patched it back over. He was supposed to use the money that the bank gave him up front towards the house but only a small fraction was used and just pocketed the rest. We found out that the brick & block he was supposed to have paid for out of his disbursement had not be paid for and had a late fee so I had to pay for the whole bill out of pocket. He is now trying to bill me for the block even though I have receipts showing that I have paid for them. He was supposed to use the disbursement to pay for the footings which I also found out were not paid for and also had a late fee which I had to pay for out of pocket. He is trying to charge us and extra $4,000 on top of the original price of $4,000 for trim work which was never discussed. After telling him we had receipts for the block and the brick mason being paid already he said he would get the money by making change orders up and putting a price on them which can not be done according to the contract thankfully. He worked no more than 3-4 hours a day an it took over a year to build the house which he said would be built in under 9 months. I had several others issues which are too many to talk about but bottom line do not use this builder unless you like bogus charges exceeding $30,000 at the end, 70% of the doors do not shut right, constantly having to stay behind him to catch his many mistakes then here them grumble about having to fix it then charge you for his goofs at the end, having extra charges never discussed tacked on at the end, being double charged for stuff and enjoy you neighbors complaining to you about the builder yelling curse words during the whole project then this is the builder for you.