Complaint Review: New England Kitchen & Bath - Glastonbury CT

Frank Maynard (owner and sales and head project manager) and New England Kitchen & Bath (”NKKB”) were hired to perform an 8 week kitchen refurbishing job.  The project started on July 9, 2019 and still has not been completed to our satisfaction (3/22/20)

In the process they ruined our adjoining family room floor (can provide photos) with their subcontractor,  and in their attempt to fix it provided old unmatching wood that Frank dug up from some other job that did not match the existing oak floor, used different wood species that was not woven in to look like the rest of the floor, as promised. When we complained during the process of repair, Frank and his subcontractor kept saying don’t worry when its done it will all blend in and it does not, not even close.

Frank doesn’t want to get a good contractor to properly fix what damage his subcontractor did to the floor. We have reached out to another contractor with a good reputation that we have had success with before and he is providing a written estimate that the work will cost home owners another $4-5K to fix the damage. Frank does not want to take that cost out of the remaining amount due.

In addition, Frank & his team ruined our dishwasher (he placed it in our garage and his subs scratched it beyond repair) which we had to replace that he doesn’t want to incur the cost of (and he agreed to); Frank’s guys threw out the top of our Viking stove (they periodically cleaned out the garage and threw out the stove top ($1,600) which he agreed to pay for the replacement of and now is not taking that cost out of the remaining amount due; Frank and his guys irrepairably scratched our Viking refrigerator shrugging it off as not his problem.  In the end, with the reductions for damage or unfinished work, the ending balance is he owes me ~$1,000...

Frank has not removed the reduced cost of the less expensive counter top we chose to install (original countertop was $8,500, and we ultimately selected a $6,100 countertop) which his own office documented as a reduction in cost to the project; Frank and his person Katlyn told us that the unused tile for the project that they bough would be returned to the tile store and credited to the project -  they didn’t do that.

The contract was for an 8 week job that started in early July 2019, we begged for him to be done by Thanksgiving and by Christmas and by New Years, which none of which was met even though we kept saying "you need to finish in the next week" (documented in Text Msgs etc.) and dragged on with all of the above issues for more than 8 months due to their mismanagement, ordering wrong cabinets, wrong cabinet faces, wrong kickplates, wrong parts, having to re-order, forgetting to put in duct work, leaving his subcontractors on their own with no direction, not having subcontractors come back for weeks while he worked to start up other projects (his subcontractors told us he was diverting them to other jobs and he had too much work to be able to handle), cabinets were left incomplete, no details or finished work done right or completely; trying to pass off incomplete work as if it was complete, forcing us as the home owners to have to try to watch what Frank’s subcontractors were doing and not doing and keep begging for him to fix issues and finish work.

We have now been told from other qualified general contractors, who we are forced to bring in to fix the problems he created, that what he built may not even be to code. We asked Frank to perform the inspection with the town to get a Certificate of Occupancy which of course he said he would do and which he never even yet has done (its late March 2020 and he started the Job in early July 2019!), and now he is trying to demand (extort) more money than is even due (before deductions for the items above) him.

While we had no kitchen we had to eat out 3 meals a day.   Instead of for 8 weeks, we were forced to eat out an additional 82 days since we had no sink or stove.

Yesterday we were notified that some subcontractor (we didn’t know who they were, people would come and go) isn’t getting paid by NEKB/Frank and Frank Maynard is telling them its because we didn’t make the last payment to him. This subcontractor of NEKB has notified us of their intent to put a lien on our property unless/until Frank pays them. Frank has been working in bad faith and taking advantage of us and our patience and trying to get through this horrible nightmare of a process with NEKB to get done this project, and we have no idea how many subcontractors he has not paid and who he may be telling to put liens on our property to try to extort us to pay him more than is due.

In fact the letter from the subcontractor’s lawyer says we have not paid invoices to NEKB but we have never received an invoice, just threatening extortion type voice messages with Frank saying that if we “pay him $10k he’ll go away”. Even just from the original contract and reducing the remaining amount due just by the reduced price of the counter top his office documented, the remaining amount due was only ~$9,200  (original amount due was $71,258 and he received timely payments of $62,000)  When it became clear that he was not going to complete this job to our satisfaction, or reduct the amount by the damage he caused, we withheld the final two payments.  

Frank told us he has other problem projects and he is looking at our home and lifestyle and trying to take advantage of us and extort money out of us by not paying his s/c’s and getting them to put mechanic’s liens on our property all in bad faith and fraud. How do we get them to stop?