Complaint Review: BVT Management LLC Danny Buivantri - Houston Texas

My partner, John, and I recently hired a contractor management service here in Houston to oversee and organize some renovations being made to our 1917 Arts and Crafts bungalow in the well-maintained subdivision of Cherryhurst. We hired Danny Buivantri and his firm, BVT Management , LLC, at the recommendation of our mortgage broker.

The work performed by the contractors hired by BVT was sloppy and often incomplete. A simple house leveling, which should have by their own estimates, should have only taken a few days, took several weeks, due in part to some unforeseen conditions under the house (i.e., a big pool of water that Mr. Buivantri accused me of omitting knowlege), but mostly due to unpreparedness by the levelers and quite a few times because they simply did not show up. MY FLOOR IS STILL NOT LEVEL AND I HAD TO PAY EXTRA TO DO WORK THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN COVERED. THE CHARGE FOR THE INSERTION OF TWO LONG BEAMS UNDER THE HOUSE WAS $15,000. Can you believe it? Then I had to pay another nearly $1,000 to fix a two inch difference in my kitchen.

We had initially gotten a bid for a three color paint job on the exterior of the house. Mr. Buivantri claims that extra man hours had to be paid because of the detail involved. If you owned a 90 year old house that you were restoring, would you want any thing less than attention to detail? I doubt it. There were so many sloppy mistakes, I had to circle to house on more than a few occasions pointing out what need to be corrected. ITS A BRICK HOUSE WITH WOOD TRIM. WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT A LOT OF WOOD, HERE!

Then there is the issue of the repointing of the brick on the east face. Repointing basically means that the brick is removed, cleaned and re-laid like it was new brick, usually to avoid patch jobs, or in this case, a leaning wall. The mortar removed from the brick is STILL laying next to my house. It is like a gravel yard out there. One would think the job is complete once the construction debris has been cleared. Not Mr. Buivantri. He says that job is done.

Of course I must now mention the roofing. Most of the roof went on without incident. There is a small patch near the back yard pool and hottub that looked like boiling oil when they had finished. The roofers simply laid the new composite shingle on top of the original 1917 cedar shakes that had once covered the whole roof. The result was a surface so full of bumps and rolls, it would have caused a four-wheeler to topple over. They finally reroofed this section to my satisfaction.

A few things that were done to my specifications, were things such as the replacement of vents in the brick to provide ventilation under the house. A window that needed to be replaced or repaired was not framed in correctly and that was finally done to a moderate amount of satisfaction. I am still unsure why the framing does not look more like the other side which mirrors it. They also did put in some support where the roof decking was sagging.

I have had to beg for my letters of warranty, which were supposed to have been sent weeks ago. I finally got them today. I also have a quite a bit of trouble with a leaky roof over the laundry room. That problem seems to have been solved after at least three separate visits and numerous more phone calls. I also got them to fill in the rodent access points on my attic space. One would have assumed these would have been plugged when the fascia and trim were repaired, but no. Somehow, fixing holes in the fascia became a separate job from repairing the fascia....same job, right?

The letters of warranty I received today are not even issued by BVT. They are from the individual contractors whom Mr. Buivantri hired. I did not hire them. I hired him. I would expect that he would at least be able to take responsibility for his own employees and their work. I suppose he doesn't want to be responsible for anything except cashing checks, which, by the way, I paid him on time, every time, and by the contract.

My mortgage broker even paid someone out of her own pocket to come clean the windows they left in a horrible state. There is still overspray from the paint gun on some windows as well as the terra cotta tile on the front porch.

For $29,000 and some change, one would expect some customer service. If you do, don't even think about hiring this deceitful money grubber.

Michael

Houston, Texas

U.S.A.