STUDIO HADAS ARCHITECTURE PC

My girlfriend and I had hired Dov to design a deck for our back yard. I initially contacted Dov Hadas on April 28th to get a design. I asked him if we could get it done in a reasonable time since I was going on vacation for 10 days, as we wanted it to be ready to be worked on in time for the Summer. We agreed on a basic drawing design and on May 17th we dropped off a notarized document to be submitted to the town to get a building permit along with a blank check for any permit fees. Upon return from my vacation, I was unable to reach Dov for a couple of days which I thought was a little odd after a few tries. Couple days later day did pick up the phone when I dialed from a different phone number (office number) as I suspected he was avoiding me. He stated he would call me back in 2 hours but he never did. I tried calling again that day several times but there was not an answer. I had a friend from another state call because I suspected he was avoiding me again and sure enough, Dov was there to answer the "wrong number" call. I decided not to pursue it further that day and see how it played out. Eventually I did hear back from Dov 2 days later at which point he told me he had to put our project aside when we were away to do another project and we would not be able to submit for a permit for a few more days because the plans weren’t ready. My girlfriend and I deemed this was unacceptable as the whole experience was poor from the start (lacking communication). I asked for a refund and Dov agreed ($750). A week later I had to chase him down again for the status of the refund. He told me he was mailing it. After a week, I started of emailing and calling him to no luck. He finally answered an email where I said I would take him to small claims court if I didn’t get an update. Had I known he wouldn’t give me a refund after telling me he would, I may have considered finishing the job with him or an alternate solution. I was not happy to learn I threw away $750. He responded to my "small claims court" email with a letter stating that I instructed him to stop work because I learned he wouldn’t be able to file for a permit until June 6th and therefore he is entitled to his $750 for what he had done thus far and that he will not pursue the other $750 “although I am absolutely entitled to.” It is pretty ridiculous claim to me considering he sent me nothing more than a basic drawing of stairs with no measurements and he agreed to receive full payment once the job was complete in the first place. My dissatisfaction was not that he couldn’t submit for a permit until June 6th, but that he decided to do work on another project from 5/17 until 6/3 without even a heads up that he fell behind schedule. Another professional that looked the drawing said there was no way he spent much time on this. His 10 minute commute to our home and 15 minute meeting with us likely took him longer. So we are left with nothing to show for, except -$750 and 2 months gone by. I should have known something was wrong when his voicemail was always full (even to this day, 2 months later, it's still full).