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Subject - Jason Crago
Sent - November/16/2011 at 2:09pm
Sent by: CMS2510I think you would be well advised not to hire Jason Crago. I had the same experience as the other post did. I sued Jason and he agreed during mediation to pay me compensation. He never did and my attorney says he is bankrupt. He had no insurance when he did our job. I was obliged by the mediation agreement to remove my posts from loghomereports. There are numerous other people in NC and VA that have similar horror stories.
My experience:
Subject: Complaint concerning NC Licensed Building Contractor Willyn Enterprises
LLC, Jason L. Crago, President. (NC License # 59679)
On 19 April 2007 we contracted with Willyn Enterprises of Mooresville NC for the construction of a log home in Yancey County NC. The contract called for the payment of a fixed management fee plus payments for materials & labor to be invoiced at cost as evidenced by copies of bills and subcontractor invoices. Willyn Enterprises was to perform or supervise all work and provide insurance. After work commenced, there began what we believe to be numerous instances of mismanagement and gross negligence and shoddy substandard workmanship. In spite of his contractual requirement to supervise all work, Mr. Crago rarely visited the jobsite. As a result, we were compelled to keep a watchful eye ourselves and to contact Mr. Crago frequently to alert him about such things as materials being left out in the weather, subcontractors and Willyn employees doing work improperly, scheduling problems and other management duties that Mr. Crago should have attended to himself. He inadequately supervised subcontractors, some of which he had not used before. This resulted in some very poor work. The deficiencies go beyond being purely cosmetic. As regards materials damaged by being left in the weather, Mr. Crago attributed the rain damage to poor quality materials supplied by Southland Log Homes. We do not believe this to be the case, because we witnessed and photographed numerous incidences of inadequately protected materials. Although we would cover the materials ourselves, upon our next visit we would find them exposed again. Some of this mismanagement necessitated changes to the building plans, as was the case with bathroom fixture layout and the number & location of garage doors. It also created problems for the roofer and other subcontractors. His employees were inadequately equipped and we had to lend them both hand and power tools and occasionally buy tools so they could complete their job. In several instances we had to tell them how to do the work. Unfortunately we could not be there full time so substandard workmanship or damaged materials occurred. Much of this, (for example out-of-plumb walls, warped garage logs, out-of-square dormers & doors, and more) cannot be fixed because it would involve extensive demolishing and rebuilding. Also we have zero confidence in the builder at this point. The insurance required by the contract was to the best of our knowledge never obtained. Regarding all the above, we have been told by some of the subcontractors and Willyn Enterprises employees that we are lucky we were around to prevent more serious problems and that our log home is the best one they have seen built by Willyn Enterprise. They told us many other Willyn Enterprise customers have serious problems. It is our opinion that Jason Crago/Willyn Enterprise LLC
should not be building homes anywhere. His is the type of operation that gives builders a bad name. I have been informed by Southland Log Homes that they no longer recommend Willyn Enterprises. Mr. Crago told me in April of 2008 that he was building Kuhn's Bros Log Homes. We also experienced serious financial irregularities in that Willyn Enterprises on several occasions billed us for more than the actual cost of subcontractor's services, and on least one occasion did not pay the subcontractor (portable
toilet).
From- Bon Homme
Jason was at my job site but he was figuring out ways to up the cost on me. He lied about costs and would submit invoices to me without substantiating them with invoices sent to him. Hey, I don't mind the 20% uplifts on the original invoices but when I started getting 35 to 50% uplifts without the original invoices. I started to question him about them and his reply was that he needed to make the payroll and needed the money as quickly as I could get it to him. The invoices would come in the mail, some did but, most did not. I have a Kuhn's Bros turn key package and am very satisfied with it. I know that some of the subs Willyn had working for him where not paid and I paid them so as not to incur a lien against my home and property. Ask those in Sparta that he hired. Jason is a loose cannon.
Contrary to what dribble is being spread by Willyn. I found them to be very nice before the construction of a log home and afterwards they became very combative about coming back to finish up construction that they had started. The estimate that they gave me looked to be good but once the construction actually started, Jason thought we had unlimited money to do the actual work. All of the catagories in the estimate took on a life of their own and I was charged 50 to 100% over what the estimate said. I am still waiting for Willyn to come back and fix the sloppy work they did on the decks and waterproofing. Willyn would take shortcuts on the construction and charge me for the full work and that showed in the construction. If you use Willyn for constructing a house be prepared to be over charged on most of the items.
From- Barbara
From: byork4@triad.rr.com
Date: 12/19/2011 6:06:33 PM
To: doug@varrieur.com
My name is Barbara and my advice to you Beth is to listen to Doug. He is absolutely and totally correct!! I am a victim of Jason's contracting as well. He built my "dream home" 2 years ago and it turned out to be a nightmare. Because I am older I guess Jason knew I would never climb up on my roof or crawl down the cliff which is my crawl space. I began to find out this past July how sloppy and unacceptable Jason's work was. When I called a heating and air man to come fix my air conditioner, he had to crawl under my house. When he came out he said, "Mam, you really need to have a home inspector come and look under your house, because it is quite obvious it has NEVER been inspected AT ALL. There were hanging live wires everywhere, there was standing water under my house (the two do not make a good combination) Part of the insulation was put in and the rest was laying in a bundle near all of the trash they threw under my house. What insulation WAS put in was put in upside down. I had been having trouble with leaks in my roof almost the whole time since I had moved in. I kept asking Jason to come and fix it and he told me he didn't have the money to pay the guys to come look at it. So the leaks continued until my guest bedroom was almost ruined and mold began to form which is the reason my doctor said I contracted pneumonia. He did come one time to fix the leak. He took a 2x4 untreated piece of wood and caulked it to my roof. The only thing that did was look ugly. I still had the leak and the mold spread. When I had roofers come to look at fixing my roof and give me bids, EVERYONE of them said they had never seen such a sloppy and ridiculous job on any roof in all of their years. I was told a 6 year old could have done a better job. The inspector said if it weren't so dangerous it would be humorous at how awful a job it was. They didn't even bother to take the plastic off the metal before they put it on and the sun burned it to the metal. They put no felt between the metal and the roof and there for the wood on my roof molded and rotted. I had to have my roof completely redone. Pieces of metal were put on backwards, upside down, and sideways. No flashing was used and I had a HUGE MESS. He also built a chimney on the roof which was totally unnecessary. Just an added piece to give him yet more money from his ATM machine (ME). The bottom of the chimney came down and sat on the deck of my outside room. It was beautiful until I was told that it was build on my deck of 2x4s with absolutely NO SUPPORT under it. My deck began to bow and became a danger. If it collapsed, it would have taken down my outside room and all of it would have fallen on the propane tank directly underneath. I could go on and on about all of the things that Jason screwed up on my house. There were 45 things against code in my house. And yes I blame the inspector of Watauga County as well. There is no way he came out and inspected the mess Jason made. I have turned them both in to the inspections office in Raleigh. The inspectors came out and both said they had seen a lot of bad work in their time but my house was one of the worst. I have been heart broken about all of this. It has cost me a lot of money. Jason used me as his personal ATM machine and asked me for money continually while we were building. I accept responsibility for my lack of business since and I got SCREWED!!! He lied and cheated me and made a huge mess out of my dream home. Anyone who allows him to build for them is crazy. I can't sue him because he already owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to other people and vendors that he has not paid or screwed up their jobs. He got away with it all. That makes me very angry so take Doug's advice and run the other way very fast!!!
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