Sandy repairs contractor paid in full for Belmar house, but work remains unfinished [Asbury Park Press, N.J.]

Sept. 12--Claire and Joe McGowan of Belmar felt pressured to find a contractor quickly, competing with thousands of other Jersey Shore homeowners whose houses needed repairs from superstorm Sandy. They thought they did all the homework they needed to find one.

They received a referral for a local contractor from a friend. They checked to see if the contractor -- Michael Viola, operating as CADD Construction of Lake Como -- was registered as a home improvement contractor with the state and whether there had been complaints. No red flags showed up.

But now they say they didn't do enough. Viola took the full payment, but stopped work before he was halfway done because of what Viola's lawyer says is a dispute with the McGowans.

Watch the video above to hear the McGowans talk about the fallout from the contractor who they say walked out on them.

"We were panicked because we had two other contractors in here and they were too busy," Joe McGowan said. "And people kept saying: mold, mold, mold. We had to do something before the mold set in. So we felt pressured to move. We got screwed."

Dealing with contractors is a process freighted with uncertainty, even without natural disasters to negotiate. The state offers strong protections. But even with that in mind, the lesson the McGowans walked away with is that more homework is always better.

There are, of course, risks at both ends. Contractors sometimes are the ones shorted.

The renovation of the McGowans' home began on Dec. 22, almost two months after Sandy struck. They paid $67,000 to Viola for the initial contract and additional work. They estimate 40 percent of the project was completed when Viola stopped working after the final payment was made on May 6. The couple and one of their three adult children were due to move back in on June 21.

"We've been in limbo pretty much all summer," Claire McGowan said. They have been living in a relative's vacant home in Spring Lake Heights since the storm.

Viola's attorney, John P. Brennan of Avon, said without elaborating that a dispute with the McGowans ended the relationship.

"We are prepared to proceed to arbitration at any time," Brennan said, referring to an arbitration clause in the contract.

The McGowans' home on Sixth Avenue in Belmar sits a few hundred feet from Silver Lake, which swelled during superstorm Sandy. The storm sent five feet of water from the lake and the rising sea into their street, and up to seven inches into the first floor of their home, built in 1923.

Those few inches of water were enough to do $70,000 worth of damage, according to their flood insurance company, which paid them that much, the McGowans said.

They contracted with CADD Construction to replace the old-fashioned plaster walls with drywall, install new wood trim, install a new subfloor and oak floor on the first floor, rewire the first floor, replace the corroded steam radiators with baseboard heat, and install kitchen cabinets, a new front door and other items.

They set up a payment plan for about $5,460 a week for eight weeks under the first part of their contract and paid additional amounts on top of that. Joe McGowan, a certified public accountant, said he should have paid more attention to state guidelines that say final payments should not be made until the work is done.

A look at the home shows much work remains.

"There (are) sections not Sheetrocked, no baseboard heat, electrical outlets are in place but not wired," Joe McGowan said. "He kept telling me we were 85 percent done. The biggest problem was that I trusted him as if he was a friend."

After returning from vacation in July, Viola told the couple he had no more money and no more workers, the McGowans said.

Despite the work created by the storm, complaints against home improvement contractors are down this year over last, said Jeff Lamm, spokesman for the state Division of Consumer Affairs. Through Monday, there have been 817 complaints against home improvement contractors. Last year, there were 1,444 in all.

Lamm suspects that Sandy has not produced more complaints because of delays in lining up funding.

The McGowans filed a complaint with the Monmouth County Division of Consumer Affairs. The division has since sent an investigator to check the couple's allegations. It is unclear how the arbitration clause will come into play with the resolution of the dispute.

Lamm said the state or county consumer affairs offices can sue on behalf of complainants or they can hire their own attorney. If they choose the latter and they win, they can receive triple damages, he said.

Laura Kirkpatrick, spokeswoman for Monmouth County, said the county's Division of Consumer Affairs rarely files suit on behalf of consumers.

The state has a variety of tools at its disposal: the power of subpoena to squeeze records out of reluctant contractors, the ability to revoke a contractor's registration or obtain a lien against assets or a contempt of court order if a judgment is won and the contractor fails to pay. That order can actually lead to jail time, Lamm said.

More protection for consumers could be on the way. A bill in the Legislature, introduced in June by state Sens. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, and Fred Madden Jr., D-Camden and Gloucester, would require home improvement contractors to carry bonds to guarantee work. Currently, they only need to carry liability insurance.

But the division's tools are there to clean up problems. There are ways to prevent them. The McGowans know that well now. One thing they would have changed: Spend the time to check references.

"I think I would go to five to 10 properties that he did work on," Joe McGowan said.

And they would have been more cautious about the payment schedule. The state recommends paying a third of the money up front, a third when the job is half done and the balance when code officials approve the work.

"I think the general public is probably unaware of how bad it is," Joe McGowan said.

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Ken Serrano: 732-643-4029; [email protected]

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