Seasons East Landscaping

As the work progressed Mr. McGrath informed me that we needed more topsoil.  He didn't  tell me how much more that we needed, just that we needed it.  He finished doing the grading and the lawn sat until the day before it was suppossed to rain when he shows up at 5pm to hydroseed the yard.  He was in a hurry as he had another yard to do.  We had a weekend of downpours and Mr. McGrath assured me that even with the  downpours we would get a lawn.  He said he would be back in May to treat the lawn for weeds and we should have a beautiful lawn.  After the downpours we had a dry spring, but we went out and bought large sprinklers and watered the lawn everyday.  Mr. Mcgrath showed up once and I complained, but was told the lawn would come in.  Mr. McGrath never showed up in May as was promised to treat the lawn and when we finally got a lawn what did come in was crabgrass. 
In the fall the crabgrass died and we were left with mud with some patches of grass.  The part of front of the yard he was supposed to grade now has 2 small ponds when it rains that were never there before he started the work..  In the backyard the ground is wet and has moss growing on it instead of grass.  The flower beds looked great when initially done, but as the summer went on I spend hours weeding them because the weeds were not removed, but cut above ground and then had mulch dropped on top. 
When it came time to settle the bill, he presented me with a bill for $16,265.  Well above the $10,00 that we had.  I had given him a deposit of $3,500 and gave him $7,000 that day(May 3rd) and told him we would have the rest at the end of July.   He called several times to get payment, but never came over to correct the problems.  We received a note from him in mid July stating that this would be the last bill before litigation commences.  Even though we never received a lawn we paid him the balance of $5,765.  We have never heard from him again even though I expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of lawn that came in or the small ponds when it rains.  We have friends that also used him and had the same problem.  They withheld payment from him until they got a lawn and he was forced to redo theirs.