Taylor County Construction and Remodeling

DO NOT hire Taylor County Construction and John V. to do any work for you. John's supervisor quit showing up two weeks into the job, despite a contractual obligation to have supervision on site at all times, forcing me to attend to the job daily and supervise. John deliberately overcharged me nearly double the agreed upon hours for electrical work, and when I called him, he admitted the fraud was intentional, and expected me to catch it, and call to talk to him about it. Workers stopped showing up at reasonable start times, and work quality deteriorated immediately. Broken windows were left installed, ceiling tiles were left broken and with hand-prints dented in them, and they actually painted around a mirror hanging on a wall, rather than remove it and paint the whole wall. I was eventually introduced to the guy that was supposed to be the new supervisor. Turns out, he was the one that broke the windows during installation and left them. During my conversation with the new supervisor, he asked to see a copy of the plans, as he had no idea what work was to be performed.  Part of the job involved an asbestos abatement. John was not supposed to be involved in the asbestos abatement, but inserted himself, and somehow offended the abatement company enough that the owner called me and told me that he wasn't sure that his technician would even work with John, but that they would knock a thousand dollars off of the price of the abatement to not have to deal with John again, in addition to other compromises they made with me to help salvage the situation. After seeing how John's interaction with this company went, I became concerned that he would equally mismanage dealings with the plumbing contractors, who were of my chosing, and with whom I had a long history. I told John that I wanted to remove the plumbing from his responsibility, and have him only supervising his own men forward. John responded by immediately telling me that he required me to put the balance of the contracted amount into an escrow account that he could access, and cease any communication with his employees. All of the work performed to this point was off contract work, staying busy doing small jobs until the abatement was performed, and paid for separately. The initial 50% deposit was virtually untouched. On top of the 50% deposit, John cashed a check, $1500 of which was intended to cover the asbestos inspection, which he never paid. When I refused, he quit the job.  John initially admitted he owed me a return of money I had paid. When I asked him to prepare his accounting of what he believed he owed me, he told me he would get back to me in 60 days, which has since elapsed. His last email said that if I'd wanted any money back, I should have demanded less.  Now my lawyers have filed a suit against him, and I've had to hire another contractor. John's involvement has, to date, cost me about $30,000 more than the project would have cost, had I started with the contractor I have now.