CHADMOR HOMES

Chadmore Homes ? Samuel Mansfield Fishel, aka. Sammy Fishel
 
My wife and I hired Sammy Fishel, owner of (now defunct) Chadmor Homes to build
our new house on a wooded lot in Wake Forest, NC. We signed a contract with him
on March 3, 2014. When we settled on a specific house plan, Mr. Fishel promised
he would ?build your house in three months.? I immediately questioned him on that timeline. He insisted that he
would build our house in three months. It should be noted that I didn?t need
him to build the house in three months. Five or six months would have been
acceptable, but he strongly asserted that he would build our house in three
months.
UPDATE:
Sammy Fishel has lost his business. According to him, he could just not make it
work. He is; however, working for another builder in the area.  This should be kept in mind if hiring contractors/builders. 
To jump ahead to the end of the story, it took him over 9 months to get us in the
house (and another 6 weeks to complete minor outstanding items.) He missed 5
completion dates ? dates that he personally set. July 31 was the original
promised date. That got pushed back 6 weeks to Oct. 15. He then said he only
needed until Oct. 17. That date passed and he said he could have it done by Oct.
23. Not even close. Oct 31 ? nope. He was fully aware all this time that as of
Oct. 31, our rental house contract would expire and we would have no place to
live. We were forced to live in a hotel for two weeks (with two dogs) while he
tried to meet yet another completion date. We finally closed on Nov. 14, 2014 ?
and we were only sure he would meet that date the evening before.
He still owes us $500 reimbursement for the deposit we put on the land. He refuses
to return that money. He has not paid numerous (at least 4 that I know of)
sub-contractors for the work they did on the house, saddling  them with costs they can ill afford. Several
of them have filed liens against our house for payment. We paid Sammy Fishel
the full amount due him. He has taken this money and refused to pay the
sub-contractors.  I have encouraged the
subs to sue Sammy Fishel personally.
It should also be noted that we incurred major (well over $8,000) expenses due to his
delays in completing the house - the hotel stay, meals, extra rental of the
Pods, rescheduling of movers?) Mr. Fishel asserted that he was in no way
responsible for the delays and refused to cover any portion of the extra costs.
In fact, Mr. Fishel never once took responsibility for any of the delays. If
this had been a young family with children, these added expenses could have
been devastating. When I pointed this out to Mr. Fishel, he appeared
unconcerned.
Several contractors have since told me that Mr. Fishel has a reputation within the
community of not being organized and not writing things down. This would
explain why he kept asking me the same questions over and over, even though he
had a clearly delineated and organized spec sheet with all the manufacturers,
model numbers, colors and locations, and that he kept getting the same answers
from me each time he asked those same questions.
Herein lies one of my biggest concerns with Chadmor Homes and Sammy Fishel. If
he had some news that we would want to hear, he contacted us right away.
Conversely, if I inquired about some part of the build that was not going well,
he would simply ignore my attempts to get an answer. He also ignored attempts
by my realtor to contact him. This became a regular routine, so it came to be
known around our house as, ?No news is bad news.? I called him for over two weeks, attempting to get just one
question answered. He did not respond to me in any manner. I had to call his
lawyer to get a reply. Later, I sent an email about a few repairs that were
under contract. I asked that he review the email and respond to me within 7
days. Again, he did not respond. Again, I was forced to contact his lawyer in
an attempt to get an answer.
I unequivocally DO NOT recommend Sammy Fishel as a builder, or even a
sub-contracting worker if you are considering building a new home.