MALIK CONSTRUCTION INC

The project went rather smoothly until we received our final invoice. After the kitchen was complete, the final bill included nearly $8,200 in charges above the $12,500 that we originally agreed upon! Needless to say, my wife and I were floored when we saw that the project was 65% over budget. Not once throughout the project were we warned that we were going over budget. For someone that promised daily updates (which I only received the first two days, then sporadically thereafter), we feel that we should have been made aware of any extra charges well before the final invoice. Furthermore, rather than take accountability for the overages, Malik placed all of the blame on the electrician that he sub-contracted to complete the electrical work. Malik produced the electrician?s invoice and receipts for all materials, which totaled approximately $4,800 (Malik only factored in $1,000 for electrical work/materials in his original proposal). We understand that he may not have any control over the electrician?s charges. However, for someone that claims to have as much experience as he does, we feel he should have known that he grossly underestimated the electrical cost and that we were going to use up that $1000 allowance rather quickly. Furthermore, Malik earned a profit on top of this extra electrical work and materials (he charges an additional 10% overhead, then an additional 10% profit on all labor and materials.) Therefore, we paid a little over $5800 (~$4800 for the electrician/materials, ~$1000 to R Malik), for something that was estimated to be only $1000. We found the fact that he earned a profit on an area where he made a mistake somewhat insulting. The remaining $2400 of the $8200 included a variety of other miscellaneous charges, some of which we also did not agree with. One area that we cannot complain about is the quality of work that was completed (even though Malik stated that he would be on-site every day, which he was not). For the most part, everything was installed accurately and professionally and Malik repaired everything that we felt needed to be fixed. However, in the end, his work was not worth the aggravation and financial burden he placed on us. We are confident that there are other contractors out there that can provide the same quality work, conduct business with integrity, and will stand by their word. We will not use Ric Malik again and we cannot recommend his company?s services to anyone.