KNE Development & Roofing - Scam
In late May 2023, We hired Ed and his company, KNE Development which also does business as KNE Roofing, to renovate our house in a timely but cost effective manner. He promised he would have everything done within two months and it would cost between $80k to $100k. He promised he would do everything to keep it closer to $80k. He asked for $40k which we wired him immediately. He was not done within two months. Then, began the game of silence broken by empty promises. Every time we talked to him, there was an excuse that he was sick, on vacation, it was the building inspector’s fault, or there was a hail storm and he had roofs to repair. He promised to be done in six weeks, then two weeks, then two weeks again and again, then by November, and then before Christmas. On September 20, he asked for another $36k which I foolishly wired him. By October, it was putting such a financial strain on us that we called him and told him to finish the house with the $36k and cut corners (ie don’t buy new appliances). Christmas came and went with the house being almost ready. Eight months had passed. I called him on December 26, and he said the house was a week and half of being put on the market. I was skeptical because the pictures he sent showed an unfinished kitchen, two bathrooms with no plumbing for the sink, bath and toilets, holes in the ceiling where lights should be, and numerous doorways without a door frame or door.
On Jan 2, 2024, he asked us to wire him $20k. He denied receiving $76k even though I saved the wire transfers. He had suddenly had no recollection that he was supposed to stay on the budget of the money we sent him. He could not provide any receipts for the work done. Given we paid and provided for most of the material (kitchen cabinets, floor/wall tile) he used and given the condition of the house, we could not see $76k worth of labor or material.
We asked him to stop working because he could not provide an accounting or receipts for $76000 that we paid him. We were also fed up with his inability to give us a firm completion date. He said he pulled permits for the electrical work he had done on our house. Livingston County Building Department recorded none. The coup de grace was being told by the City of Howell building inspector that the $18,000 kitchen cabinets we bought and his crew reconfigured and installed needed to be moved or cut and a stove could not be installed because both were too close to the door to the basement which was a building code violation.
We located a subcontractor on Jan 4, 2024, who did the HVAC work at our house and found out that he had been calling the owner of KNE Development since September to demand payment. He threatened to put a lien on the house on Jan 2, the same day the owner of KNE Development asked us for $20K.
Now, we are left with an unfinished house that we can’t sell because neither the bathrooms or kitchen are done which are required for mortgage loans. But worse, the money we paid him was taken out of funds we reserved for our youngest daughter who has liver disease and will need a liver transplant in the future.
The owner knew this as we let him know so he would understand how important it was to us that he finish the house so we could sell it. When I asked him how he could do this to my three year old daughter, he said that he had more kids to feed.
Beware.