Complaint Review: KLW Consulting-Kalvin Weathersby

Please Beware of this Contractor. We hired Kalvin Weathersby of KLW Consulting, Inc. and Paul Kearse to renovate two duplexes in St. Petersburg Florida. My husband and I met them on the site. We went over their qualifications and they showed us proof of insurance, their general contractor's license and photos of work they had done. They also took us to a job site that they were in the process of renovating. They were charming young man who seem to know what they were talking about. They assured us that they could and would handle the job starting immediately.

We wired them $15,000 on Aug 16, 2016 as a down payment and that was back eight months ago. They started doing some demo and then disappeared. Plans had to be drawn up and submitted to the city to get permits. This process was so long and painful due to Kalvin not submitting the proper paperwork and then I ended up paying for the company who drew up the plans.

Knowing what was entailed to complete this project they never applied for a demo permit, so even after the long process of getting the plans done we couldn't move forward because we had no demo permit and they had not even begun to submit the application to the City of St. Petersburg. Kalvin Weathersby continuously dragged his feet, lied about the status and for the most part he only responded to my phone calls or emails in the beginning. He always had an excuse as to why things were not done blaming everybody but himself. They blamed it on his so-called office staff, the city of St. Pete for not turning around their permits quickly, the company for not having the plans drawn up etc. We are out-of-state and therefore took their word for it only to find out find out that they did not complete the correct paperwork and therefore the city of St. Pete could not move forward with issuing any permits. He didn't even respond to the city when they were asking for corrections.

Before we realized the level of their incompetence we had bought another house to flip. They again said they could deal with it right away. We wired them $10,000 deposit on 12-2-2016 for this house which should have been a quick flip. They started demolition immediately which only took a couple of days but did so without filing for a permit from the city. With this demo they removed structural and support beams! Therefore, getting multiple code violation notices. The project had been stopped due to no permits and multiple code violations. They started applying for permits after the fact for some reason cannot figure out how to do so and we have been doing this since December 4, 2016. In the contract we have with them this job was supposed to be completed by February 4, 2017. It is now nearing the end of March and we can't even get a permit to begin the project. They had two of our buildings completely demolished and never applied for an asbestos inspection and now we're in hot water with the county air-quality division and I personally am trying to fill out the after-the-fact application because again Kalvin half-filled it out but never completed it.

It just gets better and better. They hired people to demo property at one project of ours, hired engineers to do the plans, permitting services environmental specialist etc. etc. and have not paid anyone so, not only have we given than $25,000 they have not paid anyone and now we are going to be responsible for that. We already are receiving certified letters stating that the subs/vendors they hired are going to lien our property because of nonpayment. Unbelievable!!!

About three weeks ago there was no contact he would not answer his phone's his email has been shut down and to top it all off I find out that he has filed bankruptcy on March 23, 2017 and of course naming us and all of the subs that he hired on our jobs in the bankruptcy. He clearly knew he was going to file bankruptcy and still continue to string me along and hire vendors for our jobs right up till two weeks age. I spoke to his insurance company and his liability insurance was canceled 3/11/17 due to nonpayment. Big surprise. 

How on earth this person keeps a General Contractor's license is beyond me.

As a side note, the City of St. Petersburg and the Pinellas County Air Quality Division have been extremely helpful and understanding given our situation. 

Please save yourself and do not hire KLW consulting, Inc. or Kalvin Weathersby out of Tampa, Florida.