Complaint Review: Dan Cloward Cottonwood Landscapes LLC - West Jordan Utah

To whom it may concern,

We worked with Dan at Cottonwood Landscapes starting May of 2015 through October 2015. I had gotten bids from 4 different landscape companies to help me with my yard for a home I had recently purchased. As the owner of Cottonwood Landscapes, Dan came up himself and did the bid. He was overly friendly during this meeting and his bid came in at the best price! Our yard was a bit tricky because the back yard is a hill that slopes in to our home, so our goal was to ensure that all moisture would drain away from our house. Dan ensured us that this would be an easy issue to tackle. My husband and I agreed upon using Dan as our contractor and man what a bad decision that was. We ended up paying $6,000 over what his initial bid came in at! He left permit costs out of the bid claiming he did not know permits would be necessary. We live in the avenues and Dan claimed to be working on other projects in the area, yet somehow had no idea permits were required in the historical district, which was his reasoning for not including the cost in the initial bid. When it came to the permits it was entirely up to me to secure them. I spent over 6 hours at the city building figuring out what documentation I needed and who I needed to meet with in order to secure these permits. I had to measure out the walkway entirely by myself and draw up a diagram showing the city where the walkway would be in regards to the waterline. I ended up having to go to 2 DRT meetings because during the first meeting I did not have what I needed. I am not a landscape expert so of course I wasn't aware of all the documentation required. I called Dan asking him why I was having to do this...I thought this was what I was paying him for, but he assured me that it was my responsibility as the homeowner and that he did not have to do anything with the permits as the contractor. I had to get blueprints of the walkway plan from Dan's architect to present to the city and after all that work I did by myself at the city building I ended up having to pay Dan for the work of the architect. Please keep in mind I asked the architect to meet me at the meeting and he showed up 20 minutes late and missed the whole thing, but Dan charged me for his time anyway. Dan also didn't include the cost to move dirt, which is strange since our main concern was moving dirt, so that moisture would not run in to our home. He claimed we opted out of dirt removal, because apparently I have the means to move 7 tons of dirt!? And when it came to our patio Dan's plans only included 2 walls instead of the 3 it needed for completion. Dan completely left out the third wall so we had an entire wall of dirt falling into our patio, since the paver stones were not stacked up in a wall formation as they had been on the other two sides. Dan also did not include the RainBird sprinkler control dial in the bid. He included a sprinkling system yet charged us an extra $300 to put in a dial so that we could actually turn the sprinklers on. You would think the dial would be included in the sprinkler system, but it isn't. He puts in the pipes and the sprinkler heads, but you will have no way to turn them on. He also apparently found the cheapest concrete company to work with for our front walkway, so that he could make more overhead. I say this because the company never came back to get their forms leaving us with extra wood to dispose of. They also dug the walkway out 6 inches too close to a fire hydrant, which required them to come back and do the job twice, while leaving excess dirt for us to deal with. While pouring the patio they damaged our driveway and we had to fight to get them to come back and correct the issue. They also completely over poured the walkway leaving edges that were not smooth, but instead had piles of hard cement connected to them which killed off our existing grass that runs alongside the walkway. The concrete company also hid mounds of extra cement underneath dirt in our front yard, which we found while shoveling ....Trying to remove the dirt that Dan didn't include in his contract. It was insanely heavy and very hard to move. Again, a job we thought we paid Dan and his team to do. Another strange thing about working with Dan is every time I would write him a check I would make the checks out to Cottonwood Landscapes, his company. Every time Dan would send these checks back requesting that I make them out to him personally, Dan Cloward. I don't know why Dan would want us to pay him personally and not make it out to his company unless he was hiding income from the government or from his employees. Something was very shady about this request. In his contract, Dan promised that our project would be substantially completed within 2 weeks from the start date. The start date was supposed to be July 24^th. Dan missed the start date by a week and our project did not get finished until October. You can do the math! Dan seemed like such a nice guy when we first met him. He was truly going to take care of us, but Dan became completely unresponsive once we signed the original bid/contract. I called Dan numerous times to get updates on when our project might be completed and he never answered my phone calls. In fact, one night I called Dan three times from my cell phone and he did not answer so I decided to call him blocked just to see if he might answer ...you guessed it ....he answered. It had probably only been 2 minutes since I had called him unblocked yet he still answered the blocked number ..... and surprise it was me! He wasn't excited that he answered. In fact, we got in to a screaming match on the phone... that's right ...Dan screams at his customers and then pretends like his phone is breaking up and he can't hear you trying to get off of the call. It was absolutely astonishing to me that I had to call Dan blocked to get him to answer my phone calls. He provides absolutely no customer service. Even when we were trying to get Dan our final payment we could not get a hold of him. We wanted to discuss our contract with him before we sent in the check and it took him 2 weeks to give us a call back. He claimed to be too busy and apparently couldn't find 5 free minutes in 2 weeks to get back to us. When you call the main line their accountant answers who cannot hear anything. You have to repeat everything you say at least 3 times which is very frustrating and he just tells you he will pass the info along and claims to not be informed about anything to do with your project . This means you are left with no one to turn to because even when you call their main line you speak with someone who knows nothing about landscaping and has no idea where Dan is or when he will be ableto call you back. Working with Dan and Cottonwood Landscapes was an absolute nightmare. If I could give you any advice it would be to not to fall for his low bids and friendly attitude upon first meeting. It is well worth the extra money to find someone whose bid comes in a little bit higher but who will be honest and get your job done right and on time.