Jim Rutherford Construction & Remodeling

Contracted to build single family in twelve to fourteen month time frame, Breached his contract after eighteen months when liquidated damages were about to take effect. This occurred despite solving his issue cash flow issues that he hid from us for nearly a year and his still failing to make meaningful progress. His lack of candor wasted our time and money. Money he could have earned with extra work we had planned during the course of construction.

Further, he took advantage of the fact we were only able to check on the work monthly and ignored numerous contract requirements. He constantly, operated on a “crisis management basis”. Problem routinely had to be addressed immediately, in order to keep the project moving, but no work was done after the issue was solved.

Several of the sub-contractors he used were either incompetent, dishonest or both. Law enforcement became involved in several cases. During the recovery period, found numerous construction mistakes, lack of proper insurance/liability renewals, use of substandard materials and incomplete work that had to be redone due to the deterioration of materials. Also paid for materials were missing and waste material dumped on sight. Some completed work was just plain unacceptable. So far we have had to rebuild the HVAC ducting and wiring, replace flashing, repair walkway railings, correct main electrical wiring. Unfortunately other discovered problems are just too expensive to correct. We dread what other unknown issues may emerge in the future.

During building, questions regarding construction issues showed a total lack of familiarity with the project and supervision of the work. We often had to show him answers to his inquiries in the construction plans or how to solve construction issues addressed there also.

He underbid contract to get it and constantly found “code requirements” that required additional costs. A lot of these changes were paid for and never delivered. The only thing that saved us from losing more money, was the Lender’s requirement that all sub-contractors and suppliers certify in writing they had been paid in full at each draw and owner’s follow up with every supplier for confirmation.