DA VINCI DESIGN GROUP

To put a long story short, we ended up with a beautiful new home with 11 piers missing from the foundation, pages of code violations, hundreds of unsightly nail pops, and floors that are significantly unlevel. We ended up in litigation against the contractor, won an award, and they have refused to pay. They have set up different companies and are still building and selling homes now. The Code Enforcement Manager for Mecklenburg County has documented all the structural issues and code violations and it?s a matter of public record. We hired Da Vinci in Apr 08 to build our dream home. We had begun working with them in Dec. 07 to confirm the property we were looking at was feasible. We decided to take down the existing house and reuse what we could. Derick Jones, the General Contractor, drew up plans for a new home based on our input and we were very happy with the plans for the new house. We signed a contract with them to build the house in Apr 08 and then closed on the property later that month. The build began in mid-May 08 and we were told it would take 6-7 months to complete, so Nov-Dec 08 was our expectation. At the contract signing the date on the contract was Feb 15, 2009 and when asked about this date, Derick Jones told me that they had that date listed only if there were acts of god that were beyond their control, but that it would still be 6-7 months. Within 3 weeks of the start of the project we received an email from Derick saying that they had accidentally found the septic tank when digging the footers, as well as more damage to the band sills than they expected, so we owed them an additional $4.5k. We felt strongly that since they designed the house, had recommended we move to city water, that they should have looked for the septic tank before they started digging as part of their due diligence, and that they should have planned on this. They walked off the project and we ended up signing a settlement agreement where we shared the cost (they took the majority) and they started work again after a three week work stoppage. Things continued to get worse. Their customer service was poor, almost treating us as if it was their home and how dare we meddle. We argued over the reuse of the existing hardwoods, which had been planned, but when they took the walls down they were too damaged to reuse. We ended up signing a change order for new hardwoods and then found out their wood sub had already advised them the existing hardwoods could not be reused. We also had arguments over fans (too noisy or didn?t cover enough capacity) and finishes (tile and paint) done during freezing weather with no heat provided for in the house. (We had a cold spell where it got down to 18F that Fall and many of these finishes require a minimum temperature of 45-55F.) As a result we received many emails from Jamie Lawrence, the partner who managed the business side of things, berating us personally when we questioned their practices. Needless to say, they branded us as difficult customers and whenever we made a request they didn?t like their subs conveniently left our house empty for days at a time. I had never met two people so arrogant in my life, as if who were we to question them? I mean, this was the biggest investment we?d hope to make in our lives and we wanted it done right. In the Fall it became apparent the house would not be finished in November. When I discussed this with Jamie Lawrence he rebuffed my questions by saying of course it?s Feb. (What about the 6-7 months we had originally been advised?) We felt they were holding our home hostage and punishing us for being difficult customers. Note, another slightly larger new house in our neighborhood was built with a start date around the same as ours and the family moved in to the house in early December. We terminated our contract with DVDG in March 09 when the house was still not finished and they refused to give us a project plan or commit to finish the house. We hired another contractor to finish the house and moved in to the house in late March. Within weeks, our foyer started sloping downward and we suspected there were structural issues. We contacted the Engineer of Record, who refused to come out to the house. We hired another structural engineer who looked at the localized area and identified a few piers missing. We had the house jacked up, and three piers placed where they should have been per the plans left onsite. Our case went to arbitration and during his testimony, Derick Jones testified among other things that: - he wasn?t aware of any piers missing and if they were missing we would have found it during the punch list walkthrough. - he wasn?t required to make the first floor level because it was built on an existing house but he ?made the second floor level? (when measured there was a two inch drop on the second floor over approximately 25 feet, which far exceeds the industry standard allowance for levelness) - he explained he left out a second double joist under our kitchen floor because we decided to not put in the kitchen island at the time. He did however, stand with me with my cabinet design in hand (which included the future island) to measure where the lights above where our non-standard-configuration future kitchen island would be, and then had his electrician install the lights above the ?island where he didn?t know where it would be?. We didn?t know the full extent of the missing pier situation (a total of 11) until after our arbitration case was over and the county came out to do a full inspection of the house. It turns out, the plans our house were built to were not those that were approved by the county. In addition, structural components that were shown on the plans as ?existing? from the old house and that had been planned to be reused, were not there. For instance, the plan called for using the existing 2x10?s, and they didn?t exist. They were existing 2x8?s, which leaves us with very bouncy floors. Overall, our experience with DVDG was horrible and we have lost a lot of money. They are very charming and can talk their way around anything. Previous clients who also had bad experiences never documented their issues because they wanted DVDG to fulfill their warranty obligations. We have always relied heavily on recommendations and would like to prevent someone else from having a similar experience to ours.