We hired Mr. Ashley to build out a closet in a guest room. While doing this work my wife discussed that we were interested in renovating the kitchen sometime in the future and wanted to discuss his ideas. He told us that it would be a simple job and he could do it all for $60K, because he had a connection with a cabinet company and it would only take 4-5 weeks. We expressed to him that we weren’t sure, but wanted to remove a wall he said wasn’t structural so we could open up the area before planning the cabinets. He came July 6th to remove the wall and when I came home from work everything was gone. The wall, cabinets and flooring. This could not have been a misunderstanding because we expressed to him several times “just the wall”. I believe he did this so we would have no choice but to move forward. He said he thought since my wife had met with his kitchen design person we were moving forward. He then informed me that we had a problem that the wall he just removed was structural and that it would need beams to support the roof and it would be another $10K. At this point we had few options and felt we had to continue. On July 11th, he gave us a contract with a cost of $88K and told us it would not be done until October. The increase, he said, was because the cabinets we were looking at were the most expensive cabinets that Kraftmaid makes and would be $43K. The cabinets were being done with a lady named Debbi Washburn at Pro Builder in Mahopac, NY. We received a letter from our town building department telling us to stop any work. Mr Ashley said to just call and tell them is was a kitchen remodel and assured us that we didn’t need a permit. He went so far as to get annoyed that we requested that he straighten out. On July 17th, feeling concerned but backed into a corner with the lack of a kitchen for almost 3 weeks we gave him his starting fee of $20K and $20K for cabinets. He placed 2 beams to support the roof. For the next 3 weeks, Mr Ashley would have a single worker at our house for about 3
more