In August 2005 we lost our home to a fire caused by a lightning strike. It was the day before school started and our son was home. He safely evacuated the house, save his dogs and called the fire department. With no injuries of lose of life I figured we would be fine since we were insured.

Two days after the fire I meet the insurance adjuster at the house for his initial inspection. During this visit he asked who would do the repairs and I informed him I had no idea. He told me they had prefere vendors and I told his that was fine. He contacted Paul Davis Restoration who showed up to secure the home to prevent further lose or injury to neighbood kids messing around. That night I signed a contract with PDR to do the repairs.

The problems began in April of 2006. When the new windows were installed they were installed crooked. I point this out to PDR and they were never corrected and are still crooked today.

During the rebuilding process there were numerous delays and other poorworkmanship that were point out. This included crooked walls, crooked doors, sloppy trim work and damage to appliance. These issues were brought to the attention of the company on several occassions with no corrective actions taking place.

One critical issue that came up was the installation of the gas lines. It turns out the company never drew a gas permit even though all the gas line from the garage thgought the house had to be replace. They knew this becase the gas line run through the attic and the entire roof system (except the garage) was remove. This was pointed out in a July 2006 inspection where the insepector note "gas permit needed". This was again addressed in Aug 2006 when it was again noted by the inspector "gas permit".

Since our temporary lodging coverage was running out we had to accept the house in September 2006 with the deficincies we had already noted. The one exception was the gas. They had installed a gas valve at the dryer even though the dryer was electric. They knew this because they ordered the appliances. I personally contacted Hillsborough County and informed them of the defect. They stated no gas inspection was done because no permit was pulled but after several call agreed to meet me at the house. When they arrived they discovered several deficiencies that had to be corrected. This delayed us from a 1 September turnover to approximately 9 September. One interesting point to this was that I received an Email from the company stating that because I had called the county inspector they now had to open holes in the walls to check joints and conduct a 24 hour pressure check and these are not normaly required. Basically blaming me for the delay, when actually these are required but because they occur during rough in inspection and final inspection, which they never received, they we now being required. This is all verified in the Parcel Activity Status Report attached.


In addition to validating the fact that the poor workmanship existed in the walls, doors, windows and trim he found several code violations. This included electrical, air conditioning and structural issues. These were reported to hillsborough county as the inspection offical and they had to confirm the violations. Upon notification of these problems Hillsborough County sent the inspectors for all the trades to the house to conduct additional inspections to verify the issues and check for other issues. Each issues identified in the report was verified by the county who then required the builder to return to the house to correct the violation. The contractor came out in mid Novemebr 2006 to correct the code violationas required by the county and the county approved the job and issued a second Certificate of Occupancy in December 2006.

During the above process PDR made failed to correct any issues identified in the report that were not code related. Yet in December the owner of the company and contactor of record for the permit, Merle Impson, sent me several emails demanding final payment or he would place a lien on the property and foreclose for final payment. I informed him that until the corrections were made or settlement reach we would not authorize final payment.

In March 2007 B&C Investments INC d/b/a Paul Davis Restoration Tampa East filed a foreclosure suit on our property.

In the process of the suit I was called for deposition in June or July. One of the issues addressed was that there had been no follow up report show the deficiencies still existed. This led us to have a subsequent inspections. During these inspections thing got even worse yet. In addition to the know poor workmanship the inspections discovers additional code violations and other material issues that were not previously known. These included

- Life Safety issues as documented by both a states licensed engineer and state licensed standards inspector – Several trusses have been cut in half in the top cord, piggyback trusses are not installed in accordance with engineering diagram, proper bracing not in place, hurricane straps not properly installed, straps installed do not meet the engineers plans or truss design

- Code violations – In addition to the truss issues above, 1/2 inch sheetrock was installed in the ceiling where the code (and contract) call for 5/8”, electrical junction boxes in the attic not properly installed, work not accomplished according to plans

- Over charges - Charged for 6600 sf of roofing when roof is only 5200 sf, Charged for double the actual size of gables, charged for 5/8" sheetrock and 1/2 installed, and other over charged based on our allowance in the estimate and what was selected.

- Labor and materials not used – Charged for foam board insulation in wall R-6 and foil was installed R-4.1 (not installed), charged to reinstall 40year shingles (30 year shingle were used instead), charged for 5/8" sheetrock on ceiling 1/2" inch installed (not only over charged but code violation as well), charged for 3 pc crown mold not installed

This company has been negligent in their construction and commited obvious fraud by replacing contracted materials with sub standard materials and charging for work and materials that were never used.

I am sure numerous other homeowner are victims of similar circumstance and I would guess possibly even by this specific company.

In our case in addition to all the above this has consumed over 2 years of our lives after since our return to the house and caused us great financial debt in order to defend ourselves and our equity in the house. People need to know the loss of the house is only the start of the problem many pitfalls await you in the recovery.

this must be a standard for these companies i live in oregon and yes i am having the same problem ..i am.currently still not in my home 1 room fire no blowout. 8 months later they ruined almost all the contents not in the fire./...