Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
A couple calls the Troubleshooters for help with a contractor.
The contractor has not finished the job. The couple says they’ve already paid him approximately $7,000.
Mary Rangel is a frustrated homeowner who decided to tell her story to the Troubleshooters.
"He was gonna build an addition room. Add it to the bedroom back here. And also extend the kitchen over here," Mary Rangel explained as we walked around her backyard. She also told Troubleshooters she was really looking forward to this work getting done at her house on Hayward.
Right before Hurricane Harvey hit the Coastal Bend, she and her husband hired Jake Cavazos of JT Construction to do it for $10,600.
"Why did you choose him ?" Andy Liscano, Troubleshooters reporter asked her. "Well, he was coming to our church and he was buying candles, so, you know…," said Rangel.
She trusted him and paid him $1,400 to start the job, then just weeks later, she says he asked for more, a lot more. He asked for $5,600.00 more she said.
"I said, I was kind of like, kind of hesitant, but I wanted my addition to get done, so I said ‘well, I gave him the benefit of the doubt." If you’re keeping score, at this point, Rangel has paid $7,000 to Jake Cavazos.
Rangel claims Cavazos told her the oak tree in her backyard had to be removed for the job to be done and it was. Now, a bunch of material is sitting in her garage. And that’s pretty much it as far as work getting done so far she told our reporter.
Rangel says she and her husband gave Cavazos chances, but he never did anything. So they had an attorney send Cavazos a Demand letter which reads in part…’all the Rangel’s have to show for their payment of money is the hole where the oak tree had once been in their backyard."
They’ve filed a civil suit against Cavazos. The Troubleshooters spoke with Cavazos by phone and he told us he never intended for this matter to get to this point, but some things happened with the Rangels that he didn’t like.
He does plan to meet with them to get this resolved. They can allow him to finish the job or he can give them a mutually-agreed-upon refund.
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