Schwartz Industries LLC

This father & son (Charles Black Sr. & Charles ?Chad? Jr.) company, Schwartz Industries (which just changed its name AGAIN to element/1 element - www.my1element.com) formerly Virginia Gardens & Hardscapes (VGH) won our business with a low quote, professional act, & pictures (their website & binder shown to us) of magnificent work (not likely theirs) completed on grand estates. The son (front man) played nice/professional until I signed the contract & paid half up front. After that, it was a nightmare. They claimed the project would be done in abt. 1 month but 5 months later, it wasn?t (never was). Random workers haphazardly appeared on site with little/no supervision & no necessary permits were acquired. All work needs to be torn out & redone. Independent engineers/county inspectors agree it?s the worst they?ve seen. The 1st month ended with little progress & then they announced a name change to Schwartz Industries. Concerning b/c: a) our contract & supposed lifetime warranty on the work was with VGH, b) why use Schwartz if real name is Black? Likely attempt to ?launder? the old name due to # of prior upset clients/poor work. We had to chase after them for months for legal docs to prove our contract & warranty would stay valid. Polite inquires about project details, timelines, etc were met with hostile, un-businesslike response (bullying tantrum) from the son stating that we did not have the right to ask questions. This treatment evolved into a hot-cold-hot-cold, game playing. The father took over as POC to attempt damage control but things did not improve. Son contacted us to admit he had forgotten a small retaining wall in his design but demanded $1,200+ to correct it or else he would remove all workers/equipment & leave the mess until he felt like returning & at an even steeper financial penalty. We threw them half the money to get work moving again but this just encouraged them to keep messing with us. Instead of proper patio top flagstone cheap, thin veneer stone (normally used for walls/indoor applications) was very sloppily layed (with huge, inconsistent spacing) further ignoring our requests & pictures we provided early on. After repeated pleas for the spacing to at least be corrected the 2nd shakedown came ? tried to charge us a huge amt. to pull up & correct. We protested so they just set them in concrete as they were (not even done right-all loose) Finally, sloppy (not to code) set of steps made of cheap, warped, knotty wood slapped onto the deck, refused to meet to walkthrough the project & the father just showed up very early one morning, demanded final payment while standing on the still unfinished front steps. I refused to pay until an engineer evaluated the work. We had to contact the police a couple weeks later when the father and a crew were found trespassing. Pretending to leave when asked to but I found father's truck backed into driveway with he and crew headed into back yard when I doubled back to check. When police car pulled up they hurried back to truck and fled. BEWARE! Chad is operating under the new company: element or 1 element - www.my1element.com.