Complaint Review: Rau Builders LLC - Internet

We purchased land back in 2016 and were ready to begin building our family home. We are in a temporary living situation when we started our search for the right builder. We interviewed several builders but ended up settling on a super smooth talking and high promising Raymond Rau to be our builder of our barndominium. Rau knew we were on a time constraint and reassured us constantly of the amazing, quality work that he and his crew would perform in building our dream home after closing. We signed final contract paperwork and closed on our construction loan in March 2017 and were eagerly ready to see progress begin on our home.

We  could quickly  tell nothing was moving and we were constantly attempting contact with Rau to determine status of the project. Rau was handed a total of $35,000 to begin building our home /inital draw and earnest money. A pile of dirt and a crew of 4 people (2 men and 2 women) showed up about week #2 to handle a pile of dirt delivered for the pad of our home. Lumber was scarse and was in no way delivered in any amount to make even a small dent in framing for our foundation. Holes in the pad were dug for posts and not to the degree that Rau has promised in quality. We even purchased things that Rau had promised to use and he convinced us he would reimburse us for the purchase of the things he was missing like sealant for the poles. Rau promised posts would be concreted into the ground but just piled dirt around them.

5 weeks went by and nothing moved forward or got any closer to a foundation, plumbing, ect. Bank decided to request invoices be provided for all of the work and material that had been paid for since Rau was already mentioning needing another draw for more material. Rau provided 6 invoices by the next day: 2 from McCoys that had hand written check numbers on them, an invoice for purchases prior to our closing date by an entire month and then tried to move the date forward on the invoice and hand wrote in a total amount paid that was significantly higher than the invoice amount with no mention of what the payment was for, an invoice for National Pole Barn Co, a non existent company for the roof pitch order and listed an address that doesn't exist and a phone number that belongs to a women on his crew verified by a phone call and a search on facebook!  Rau provided duplicate receipts for posts and material ordered from different companies with hand written check numbers. We called McCoys and the other companies that were valid and determined not a single invoice was actually paid for and no material other than dirt and a few posts/lumber were actually ordered and paid for. We determined that total material and labor maybe could come up to $5000 and that was being generous. The crew spent maybe 1 or 2 days over a 2-3 week period making painfully slow progress and that was with my husband constantly checking on the job and calling Rau about problems found on our pad not matching the floor plan, ect. Needless to say, we have huge concerns at this point that nothing was really happening on our home build and that Rau was just playing around with our money and had the nerve to ask for another draw to order more material after the $35,000 handed to him for earnest money, a floorplan that was never completed and material to start the pad and framing for our home.

After we had already found 2 other people in Texas who were scammed in the past year by Rau, we decided to notify our bank that we would not be releasing anymore money to Rau and we wanted to terminate our contract with Rau as our builder based upon fraud and violation of our contract. We notified Rau by notice of our attorney that we were terminating him as our builder and asked for him to come to the table to settle things professionally with our bank and us so that he could be paid out for labor and materials that were actually ordered and delivered and return the rest so we could move forward with building our home. Rau has also filed mechanics lien paperwork at time of the contract signing and our bank is saying the builder must remove this lien. We have requested in writing and given Rau a 2 week notice to please have the lien removed on our construction loan and property so we can proceed and he has failed to respond to any requests by email or certified letter other than to text my husband that he could have talked to him "like a man" and claimed he did nothing wrong with the invoices. Rau stated his lawyer would contact our lawyer to deal with the issue that way. Its been crickets since. He claimed to be excited to help our family. We have recording of Rau stating he had already ordered trusses and pitch for our home that was never ordered and we have invalid/fraudulent invoices presented for material and work never done or ordered or paid for and constant excused for not having our completed floorplans due to his computer getting a virus. Rau even tried changing his name on McCoys invoices to a different company name in the first 5 weeks of our project. To anyone not paying attention, he would have been trusted and convinced you to move forward knowing that things were going to speed up soon and quality of work was promised. I can promise you that would never happen on our project and many people will become victims of this b****** unless you educate yourself.

WE have filed criminal charges against Rau for Fraud and plan to exhaust all resources to smear his name in order to educate the public on what a total fraud and scam artist he is. He will smooth talk you to know end but he will deliver NOTHING!!  don't let him into your home or your life or your home project. You will only be robbed blind by his scams!!!  Raymond Rau---NOT A REAL MAN at all  and did not even respond to our letter of request to end things professionally and honestly.  Raymond Rau has failed to remove the lien he filed on our property at closing preventing us from moving forward with a new builder.  Karma will bite you Rau and I hope to be apart of that!!