L.O.C.Maintenance and Construction

Description of Work: We hired LOC Maintenance for a room addition which turned into a kitchen remodel as well as a new covered patio. Mr. Riley's original bid was 40k, changed to 71k and the cost kept going up because Mr. Riley was not experienced enough to bid the job. When changes were made to the job Mr. Riley NEVER quoted what the cost was, leading us to believe he knew what he was doing and it was within the scope of the bid and there was no change. Never once did he say, we can do that, but… it will cost $xx. The job ended up costing 80k. The demolition began at the end of December 2011 and the job was projected to take 6-8 weeks, 4 months later the job was still not done. Mr. Riley became very belligerent around the end of March, refusing to do specifics which he had promised to do. He was very vague on his contract, our mistake, and would frequently say "that was not in the contract" but it was in his promise of doing a good quality job. Also in his promise before we hired him that “he was not that guy” you know the guy who promises the world and doesn’t deliver. We had discussed with him how we had hired a shabby roofing contractor previously and did not want that sort of work again. We had explained to him how the pool company never replaced our grass or fixed our sprinklers when they installed our pool, as they promised and he swore he would have everything looking better than it was before he started the job. ALL LIES!! He said “I’m a man of the cloth, an ordained minister and I promise I’m not that guy”. He said “I will stand by my work and guarantee it to be satisfactory and you can call me for any problems in the future, a year or ten years from now”. That ALL turned out to be lies. We couldn't even get him to complete the job, no way he'll ever stand behind his work, he made sure he didn't have to. To date we still have open permits and Mr. Riley has not shown up to correct the issues to close the permits. I wouldn't trust this guy on any type of job. He did a job for some friends and they too were quoted one price (which is a huge factor in hiring someone) yet when he was done, the jobs cost much more. Mr. Riley uses "I'm an ordained Minister" to get you to believe that he is honest and a good man. I should have known he was crooked when he said that over 100 times and the fact he used to be a used car salesman. Once a crook always a crook. He had all the tactics you never want to see in someone you hired to do a job on your home. Mr. Riley threatened to put a lien on our property if we didn’t pay him the final $4,000 (remember we had already paid him $76,000 and he still couldn’t pay his contractors??? RED FLAG) He said his contractors were threatening to put a lien on our home if we didn't pay him the final payment, it wasn’t his contractors it was him. Turns out it was just an idol threat which he used as a scare tactic. It worked because we are honest people!! If he couldn't pay his contractors, that was his problem, but out of good faith we paid him the final payment, believing in his word to come back and finish the job. He even signed off on a punch list that he said he'd finish, which he has not to date. Beware of this man and his honest appearance and his use of God to con people into believing he's a good person. He's a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Mr. Riley yelled at me and cursed at me 3 times in my own home. Now picture a 6ft tall man yelling at a 5'6 woman in her own kitchen. I was terrified!! When he refused to complete some of the work we were not happy and he didn't like being called out on it and got angry. I never yelled at him first nor was I the first one to be vulgar; I merely defended myself the way my instincts told me to. The only thing he agreed to finish on our punch list was our shutters, but he didn't order them, he kept telling us he ordered them and after 6-8 weeks we realized he was lying and never placed the order. He told me 2 times the names of two different companies he ordered the shutters from, I called both companies and any company that sounded like the ones he mentioned, searched online for national and local companies as well as called Home Depot and Lowes. There was no order for our shutters in his name or our name. After confronting him with this information he finally confessed to my husband that he did not order the shutters. The money he offered did not cover all of the items he left unfinished. He never offered to return ALL the money, he only offered to return $1400 because that was all he had. He kept asking for money every week in the beginning. The original contract stated 40% due at signing and 30% due once framing is complete, balance due at completion. We paid him well OVER 70% prior to completion. Our final payment to him was $4000, we had paid him 76k already and he complained we were asking for things to be finished or fixed that were not his fault or her just flat out refused to do them because he turned into a jerk once we paid him, actually he turned into a jerk when I told him we would not pay the final 4k until or punch list was completed. He took our punch list and crossed off half of it and most of the items he promised to do once we paid him, that's what, still needs to be done. A job is not complete or considered "good" if it’s left unfinished. That's the kind of liar Tim is. He'll promise the world but he is not capable of delivering so he gets frustrated and blames the home owner for his shortcomings. He has all of his money while we have the unfinished product. On top of our bill which kept going up, I forgot to mention the $3000 bill we paid for materials at Home Depot because he so conveniently left his credit card at home one day. He never reimbursed us for that $3000 nor did he take it off our final payment. I didn't think of it at the time, but he called me to use our credit card for the bill, why couldn't he call his wife, who is a stay at home mom, to get his own credit card number??? That should have been another red flag, but as I said we trusted this man. In hindsight, I will never let a contractor charge our credit card for materials he is suppose to provide and which should be included in the quote. He never deducted all of the money I spent on the fixtures for the room addition, he said mine were higher priced than what he was going to provide. He promised me oil rubbed bronze from the beginning and everything I bought; I searched for the cheapest items online or at Home Depot. I could go on and on with the promises he made which he never fulfilled. Till this day there are open permits on our property which he will not come and take care of the items that failed the final inspection. He called for the final inspection, the inspector said HE WILL come and take care of the items, but he has not once tried to contact us to take care of those items. He is angry with us because we tried to hold him to his word. His work was going along great until the end, once the punch list came out and he KNEW he hadn’t finished everything, he began getting even more angry and refusing to do the work. We are the ones who should be angry after spending $80,000 for an unfinished job. He was in such a rush to move onto the next job because he under bid the timeframe it would take to complete our job from the very beginning. Even before we added other items to the job. One of the things he was so excited to start was solar panels because he could make a lot more money on doing those jobs (AKA Rip more people off). Buyer beware if you hire him to do any kind of job, from a kitchen remodel to granite to a room addition to solar panels. I praised this company and this man up until the end when he screwed us out of finishing the job. Bottom Line... Job still unfinished and now he says he won't work for us again, meaning he has no intention of EVER completing the job. We believe the fact that Mr. Riley did not complete the job he was paid to do is warning enough. I wish I would have checked Mr. Riley out on Angie's List prior to hiring him; the previous review was exactly what happened to us! I urge you to trust your instincts and RUN the other way when approached by this man!!! We cannot change what happened during our job, but we can help prevent more Austinites from being taken by Mr. Riley. Oh BTW, he has at least one photo that I’m aware of on his website that is NOT his work. He copied it from an example I sent him. He knows it’s there and yet almost a year later has not removed it. Plagiarism from the Honest Ordained Minister?!?! Both my husband and I are unsatisfied with the end result of the job, my husband just trusted that when Mr. Riley initialed and signed the punch list that he would indeed return to complete the items on the list. By that point I knew it wasn’t going to happen since I was the one home with Mr. Riley during 99% of the job, I was beginning to see how crooked he was and began questioning him. That was why he started calling my husband at the end, he knew I was onto him. He played us off of each other and made it VERY uncomfortable to be around him. He would tell me “that’s not what your husband said”.

Description of Work: I had a large dog and needed a new door with a dog door installed...and on a limited budget.

Description of Work: He was supposed to help us get ready to sell our house - touch up the painting and other odd jobs around the house.