Complaint Review: Elite Construction Marc Ritacco

Marc Ritacco of Elite Constructoin was contracted to perform a major remodel of our house in the north of Austin. He quoted us a price for remodeling of the master bath, and kitchen, along with some cabinets for the dining room. This was a large expensive job requiring basic general contracting skills in execution, planning, and coordination. Marc represented himself and his company as capable remodelers, and gave references. After checking references, we awarded him a very large contract, in excess of $45,000, including extras along the way. In retrospect, the references must have been part of the setup.

His demolition crews showed up promptly and proceeded to demo out the full kitchen and bathroom. Little did we know that nothing was going to be put back in livable condition. The original estimate for job completion was 3 weeks. The bottom line was that we were left without a functional bathroom and kitchen for well over 4 months, with no end in sight. At that point we fired Marc, and had to pay for the work to be completed on our own, but not before he has stolen a great deal of money which was never applied to purchase materials or labor to complete the job. We estimate that he spent, at most, $5,000 of the over $35,000 he received before we wised up and fired him. Do not consider using him for any job whatsoever. I have been in touch with others that are in the same situation.

In the end, the contract was so obviously defaulted, that he agreed to pay us back for the money we had to lay out to complete the work. He actually signed the repayment agreement with no intention to repay. That was three months ago. We have not received a dime! He has no regard for ethics in business or the law for that matter. His company is not a legal entity, and is not registered with the Texas Secretary of State to do business here.

Plain and simple, Marc Ritacco is a crook and Elite Construction is a fraud.

In a nutshell:

1) He failed to pay his subcontractors and left us open to liens from honest workers who were also taken by him. If you are a subcontractor, do not work for this man or his company.

2) He did not perform any project planning, or job management, or worker supervision. Most jobs were not completed. Those that were, were not completed to workman like standards. Example: mis-wired appliance hookups subject to creating fires, pipes exposed to uninsulated outside brickwork which would have frozen in cold temperatures, pipes left un-anchored behind walls, uninsulated outside walls, large gaping holes left in outside brickwork causing water leakage into house, base cabinets installed in such a way as to not support the counter tops. I could go on and on. Suffice to say, that he is UTTERLY INCOMPETENT as a contractor and has no business representing himself as such.

3) He did not use the funds he received from us to purchase supplies they were intended for. On numerous occasions workers showed up at the house with no raw materials or instructions about what to do because Marc did not have the funds to supply materials.

4) He frequently made excuses and outright lied about the status of major work items, such as kitchen cabinets, shower enclosures, fixture purchases, etc..He did not purchase the major items required of the remodel that his contract specified (shower enclosure, lights, fixtures, cabinets). We were left to pay for all the major items that were his originally his responsibility.

5) His crews never once left the work-site in decent condition. Nor did Marc ever show up to make sure they kept the site clean, despite numerous requests on our part for him to do so. Our house was a complete disaster area for months on end with no end in site, until we fired him midstream.

6) At one point he hired an acquaintance of his, and bought him tools out of our draw money to learn how to build kitchen cabinets so that he could get them "on the cheap" for our kitchen remodel. The amateur cabinets were a disaster, built to the wrong dimensions, built of substandard materials, didn't fit the spaces intended for, and began to fall apart immediately. When he finally had to hire a professional cabinet maker to remove the garbage he tried to pawn off and replace with proper workmanship, he did not pay him and left us holding almost the full bill.

AVOID THIS COMPANY!!!!

Bob
austin, Texas
U.S.A.