J S Custom homes inc

We couldn’t be more disappointed with our experience. Bottom line…NEVER hire Joe Stanford or his company JS Custom Homes!!! My wife and I had Joe build our custom home last year. It’s now over a year since we broke ground on this project and it’s still not completed!!! Joe and his crew haven’t worked on our home in over 6 months! He also still hasn’t reimbursed us $17K for items that we purchased during the build that he had already drawn funds for. Furthermore, the list of things that he screwed up is extensive...and not little things either (foundation, windows, elevation, etc…will go into detail below). He had health issues through the build so we cut him a TON of slack since we felt bad for him, however that doesn’t mean his crew and subs couldn’t work on our home…it got to the point where we would get so excited just to see someone, anyone, working on our home. There would be weeks/months of no one being there!!! We worked with our architect to make sure the plans were perfect! Despite that, I can’t even begin to tell you how many things on the plans that he missed, got wrong or simply didn’t do. His main argument was that he didn’t bid for this or that….even though he had 3 months with the final plans to modify any bids. A fundamental expectation we had about construction was that if it was on the plans then it should be included regardless of if he didn’t bid for it…that’s on him! Don’t get me wrong, he’s a super nice guy which makes it very hard to be angry with him…but at this point we’re beyond frustrated and just want him to do the right thing and finish our home! THE DETAILS: -The tile in our master bath is uneven and we catch our toes all the time…when asked about it he blamed us for selecting the wrong layout pattern with that tile (offset). The fact that his first response to our concern was to blame us should tell you everything you need to know! -Make sure you get everything in writing and hammered out ahead of time…so many times when we were originally meeting he would say “we’ll figure that out during framing” which was code for…”it’s custom/difficult so I’ll put it off and hope you forget about it or charge you more” -He screwed up the elevation our home was supposed to be at (by 18”)…this may seem like a little thing but our home that was supposed to be flush with ground level, you know that whole no steps on the main level thing for ease of access with strollers, wheelchairs, etc…yep our plans called for that and because of him shooting the elevations wrong we now have 2 steps into our main level! This mistake also affected drainage around the house. -He struggles with actual custom work, which is ironic. As soon as custom work was involved it was beyond frustrating to get him to work on it and get it right. -He lied to us about the lot being subordinated (won’t go into the full story but suffice to say this cost us $4500) -He got the size of windows wrong..yep our windows are 1ft shorter than what the plans called for! -He screwed up nearly everything structural about the plans…the foundation is the wrong height, the joists were set on the foundation and not hung, the trusses in the garage are attic trusses when we said we didn’t want them (but we were charged no matter what…and he then tried to charge us to put an access in to use that space that we apparently paid for all along). -He’s super old school and his accounting and communication reflects that, works for some but my wife and I are in our 30’s so it was difficult. -Make sure you understand what EXACTLY is included in the bid/budget…even if something is on the plans he tries to claim that if it’s not on the bid it’s not included. -His paint job was one of the worst I’ve ever seen…overspray everywhere, awful cut lines, trim that still isn’t painted, etc, etc. There are countless other things that I could go into, but you get the idea. Please Joe, take ownership and do the right thing!