T R Smith Construction

On October 22, 2015, I signed a contract with TR Smith Construction of Joplin, MO, to build my home. It was a cost plus 10% contract at a total cost of $263,699.70. The work started in April of 2016 with the projected completion date at the end of August 2016. On July 20, 2016, TR Smith contacted me and told me that he was terminating the contract. After the signing of the contract, I began having communication problems. I would call, text, or email and not get any response. I took it that since they were not actually building the house at that time that I was low priority and that once the building started, I would be able to get a hold of them better. I was wrong. I was never able to contact the actual owner, Tony Smith. Even after begging his wife to please have him call me. I would have to discuss things with his wife, which was difficult, because she worked at a car lot on most days. Wednesday was the only day I could truly catch her because that was when she stayed home and did the book work for the construction company. Originally, I was supposed to work with the owner’s brother in law which had been a school principal just a year ago. I later found out that his contract had not been renewed by the school district due to some “shady” actions. Due to his lack of experience in construction, I could never get any valuable information from him. Eventually, I was unable to get any type of response from him whether it was a text, call, or email. After dealing with this for a while, I emailed the company and requested to only deal with the owner or his wife. I never received any confirmation from them but just started directing all of my questions to the owner’s wife. The owner, Tony Smith, still never contacted me. During this time, work on the house slowed down and the cost of items and labor started going up. The cost for the footings was around $5000 over their bid. The labor cost for framing was $7000 over their bid. Framing materials were higher that what was bid. When questioning the wife about this, I was given unacceptable responses like that the framing labor included the garage and the roof over the porches. I pointed out that those things had been in the plan when they gave me the bid. I went on to tell her that in fact, I had not added anything but had taken off some things to try to lower the cost. Shortly after this, I was notified that they were terminating the contract. When I asked why, I was told that I was asking too many questions and that they felt like I was spying on them. I am living in Texas so I asked a friend to go by and take pictures of the progress. By this time, they were about 2 months behind schedule and almost 50% over budget. I wrote emails and called to ask them just to finish the house. I had already sold my house and was needing to be there to help take care of my parents. After no reply, I asked them to at least dry in the house. Stacks of shingles were laying on the roof. Finally, they agreed to that. I then asked when they thought that part would be completed. Again, no reply. I frantically called around to make sure everyone had been paid. At least they made good on that part. They did not bother cleaning up the mess the subcontractors had made. I had to pay someone else to come in and do that. I would highly recommend that if anyone is looking for a builder, do NOT use TR Smith Construction. The brother in law kept bragging about all the houses they were working on, including the building of their own. I believe that they had too many homes to work on, and not enough people to work on them. TR Smith Construction is a small time builder, not a professional company able to handle that volume of homes. Since I live in Texas, I was the easiest person to drop. I also believe that the brother in law made up my bid sheet and underestimated everything just to get the job. Therefore, I don’t think they are professional or trustworthy enough to do one home properly.