Monday, May 9, 2016

email screen captures, originals are still on my mail server.

From an early draft, color lighting of text was done by Marty Davis. As the structure changed to meet requirements for construction loan this language stayed in place. After we had decided that we could not secure the loan needed for earth sheltered as had been the plan we looked at a steel building with a full, finished, walk-out basement. The bank thought that this was insane, but a stick-built of same size and floor-plan was fine with them.

Note that at this time he seems to understand that the list of materials is important. 

Here is the verbiage from the document sent to the bank as part of the documentation to secure the construction loan:



 The first demand for $9,700.00. Also the concrete was not actually paid for it turned out. I ended up paying $7,169.97 for it directly to avoid foreclosure from their Mechanic's Lien.


I really should have given up before this step and saved myself money, time, and anguish as the result would have been the same. Hindsight. Back to our emails of 6/23:

This is when Marty started maintaining that the 8 page Description of Material has no bearing on what he needs to deliver because it has no prices on it, they are in the Contractor's Verified Statement, a one page document with prices. Here is a copy with the payouts that were made listed:

To claim that this is the only binding document and that the descriptions, floor plans, and site elevations are meaningless is stupid. How many square feet is this buying? What is the r-value of the insulation? How many doors and windows and of what size? Does this buy more than one electrical outlet?




I had not realized that everything was going pear-shaped from the first day of having Davis Caves' employees on the job site. Had I known his plan for charging me (and ignoring the part of the job description that included this as part of the construction costs) at this stage I could have had him fell the trees and drug them out of the way for me to cut up later. Instead he followed our verbal agreement to cut it into firewood and take 90% of it for himself.

Once we got lawyers involved a suggestion that would have been simple, and perhaps helpful, would have been a completion date with financial penalties for every day the finished house was late. If you choose to hire Davis Caves I would suggest looking into this and other options to encourage completion with your attorney before signing anything.



Friday, May 6, 2016

Davis Caves final interior images

Excuse the mess, it appears some animals had taken up residence.

 sun-room, south facing with lots of light

from the bottom of the stairway


animals refuse to use the proper facilities, the septic system is installed for a reason, and a price


upper level towards dining area, large opening for glass doors to the planned deck


view out of window opening, this would be a nice place to live


at least it is providing shelter for something, but if this had been my plan from the beginning I would have used cheaper materials and construction techniques


and I would have spent less on lights and bathroom fittings


watch your step, the deck is not solid


 the visible gap in the osb sheathing used to concern me, I guess the plastic wrap takes care of it


kitchen sink went below this window


the front door is pretty but it seems lost on the animals

Thursday, May 5, 2016

One of the documents describing the house to be built.

Description of materials:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByKmzSBhIQc0NGV4alBIWFhMek0/view?usp=sharing

This is one of the primary documents that the bank required to approve the loan. It tells them what the money is buying. Later Marty Davis argued that this document was meaningless because dollar amounts were not on it, but on a separate document. The bank and two attorneys that I contacted all disagreed.

Of particular interest in this case is item #31.

Without this the builder could take all of the money from the "insulation" line item and put up any piece of insulation and declare that the insulation is done. without this document, the sheet with the cost of each line item is practically worthless. The document works together with the floor plan and site drawing to accurately describe the job in detail. It is worth noting that we used Marty's architect, so we had to confirm that the plans met our expectations, we could not "sneak" anything onto the plans.

At one time Marty accused us of adding the verbiage on item 31, here is a scan of an early draft in Marty's handwriting and signed.


Davis Caves construction detailed overview from 1/08/2009



Spring of 2005 we requested pricing information from Davis Caves for building in the area in 1-3 years and on 6/06/05 received a price of ~$84/square foot.

March of 2007 we met with Ruthanne Davis to discuss our needs and why we should hire them over others.  Finished building cost  was given as ~$100/square foot.  In July Marty visits the job site and we pay him $3000 non-refundable deposit that is to be applied to construction costs. August 2007 the finished price goes up to $120/square foot.  

When visiting the site we discussed site prep and tree removal in particular, at that time he gave us a figure, I believe it was $3000, for this work.  We told him we already had a cheaper bid in hand that we would use instead.  At that time Marty Davis offered to include the work in the contract price if we let him take the wood, I replied asking if he would be willing to leave a portion of the wood for our use since our plans included a fireplace.  He agreed.  Each time we received a description of the job I took the statements that tree removal and site prep would be included as evidence of this agreement.

When the work was done he did indeed take most of the wood leaving us a small stack, as if he remembered the agreement and then he demanded $9700 for the work.  In fact he now uses removing the wood from the property as a reason he is asking for so much for the work.  If we were paying him we would have expected the wood (our property) to be left for us.
The wood cutting was done, to the best of my knowledge, by a crew of 3 and finished in two days.  Later he cited labor costs for additional work at $30/hour per worker. 
We had trouble getting financing for an earth sheltered home and the bank appraisals kept coming back thousands of dollars under the construction cost.  The cost was also more than we were comfortable with so we went for conventional construction in the end.  We closed on the construction loan 4/23/08.

Trees cut on 5/20-21/08.  Area cleared, preparing to break ground 6/12/08.  Footers in 6/21/08.
Demand for additional $9700 for clearing/removal of trees and “dirtwork” for drive 6/23/08. I showed Marty his signed description of materials showing the tree removal included in price, he claimed that document had no bearing because prices were not on it, he was angry said he did not remember writing that said he would have to decide whether he would continue the job. We offered to pay him $3000 for this work, even though we felt we were not obligated to do so, when the job was finished provided that there were no cost overages or other “surprises” in the building process.  Marty assured us that all the other prices good and that there were no other surprises.
Basement walls poured (curing) 6/28/08. Forms off, basement plumbing rough in 7/02/08.  Basement plumbing rough in finished, gravel in place. Prepping to pour concrete floor 7/08/08.  Floor poured 7/09/08.

Around this time Marty told me that his supplier would not sell him an electric furnace to install as per the specifications of our house.  We could pay him more for a heat pump (that we actually preferred, and had originally asked for, but they said the earth sheltered house would need so little heat that it did not make sense to upgrade from normal furnace and we wanted all electric) or find our own HVAC contractor he also said that his septic contractor had fallen through and we should hire our own septic contractor.  We did on both counts.  Marty had already pulled out $3000 from the septic line item (supposedly needed for ordering materials for the septic system) and after the work was done a second payment was made to Marty to give him the total amount needed to pay the septic contractor (early September draw).

7/10 or 7/11 I was asked for exact window sizes and placement so wall framing could start soon and when I delivered the lower level figures I commented to Adam Davis that their prices must be much better than those on the Andersen Window web site, as I could not get the windows for the price in the Verified Contractor's Statement (that I refer to as the contract).  Marty let me know that the windows were going to cost significantly more than the line item for windows (and doors) of $7300.  We worked out a compromise where we downgraded the windows from series 400 to series 200, reduced the number of windows and doors, exchanged some windows for a cheaper style and purchased the interior doors ourselves.  This got the cost down to about $7400 using the price list from Marty and the Andersen Windows web site prices for the windows not listed on Marty's list.  Marty then supplied us with $1560 to purchase the exterior doors of our choosing.  Marty drew $3000 from the window line item as down payment for the window order, and supposedly place that order in mid-July.  At the time of the second draw in late July Marty asked to put $4800 on the statement for the tree removal/etc.  I refused and he said that he would trust us to take care of it at the end of the project.

Framing continued, exterior walls were built and there was a long wait for the roof trusses.  By 8/26/08 roof was on (no shingles), by 8/29/08 wiring was being started.  We selected siding and shingles from samples and brands provided by Marty.  By 9/13/08 the shingles were on as was house wrap.  L***** went into the hospital on 8/24/08 with *****, was there until 9/06/08. 
9/11/08  I got a call from S***** from ***** Ready-Mix telling me that they had not received payment from Marty for concrete and that she was having a hard time reaching him on the phone, would I have him contact her?  (this might have been a second call from her, she might have made a similar call earlier, probably August, I do not recall clearly) I called Marty passed this on and inquired as to why this had not been paid as he had drawn the funds for it.  He explained that he had already taken care of it, but S***** must not have gotten it yet.
We hired a local HVAC contractor to install heat pump system, his price was $8000, which is $2000 over the contract price.  He finished the rough in and billed us for the first half. 
L*****'s recovery was difficult after her release from the hospital and we found a specialist in ***** (out of state) to consult.  We were there on 9/24/08 when S***** called me again, saying that they had still not received payment and if they did not they would have to put a lien on our property.   We called Marty and left a message instructing him to call us and explain why Ready-Mix had not been paid.  We got an email saying he had called her and was sending a check that weekend.
On 9/30/08 we received an email from Marty saying that he could not continue working on our house until we “get settled up on the bill for the removal of the trees and the cutting in of the driveway.”  The next day we visited the job site to find all of his tools and equipment gone.  That day we went to ***** Title Co. to inform them of the situation and confirmed that ***** Ready Mix had still not received payment, later we confirmed that the septic system had not been paid for either.
I emailed Marty on 10/02/08 saying I was not certain what payment he was waiting for, but to work with us to resolve the issue.  On 10/10/08 I emailed again asking what he was asking for and got a response on 10/11/08 saying that we needed to pay him what he felt was owed to him.  On 10/13/08 he emails promising to get the figures together of what he wants.  On 10/14/08 he demands “full” payment of tree removal etc. and other money from septic line item and his remaining profit on the project.  On 10/15/08 he finally says he wants the full amount as per his “original bill” he thinks it is $9800.
I had a meeting with (loan officer) who recommended paying him off to get back to work and she tried to get a meeting for Marty and I with her and the title co.  Marty is never available so we finally get a conference call on 10/29/08.  During this call Marty admits to not paying bills to force me to pay him more money, he felt this was the only way he had enough leverage to get the extra money from us.  I am unwilling to pay him more money at this time, but I had done the math and knew that he had at least $12000 in unpaid bills and a lien that would result in foreclosure on 12/01/08.  Marty was unwilling to return to work or pay the bills for fear he could no longer force me to pay him extra money.  (loan officer) suggested that I pay the money into an escrow account that would be guaranteed t be paid to Marty when he finished the job and if he had cleared the unpaid bills before 12/01/08.  We both agreed and were left to negotiate the final amount.
In the end I agreed to pay the $9700 with terms such as his paying the unpaid bills before we were foreclosed on.  Marty then refused any agreement short of paying him directly with no conditions.  This was untenable so I paid about $12500 in unpaid materials and subs, told him to take the $9700 from that, return the rest and get back to work.  First he said he would consult his schedule, then he asked for another payout.  I suggested that he put together the payout he thought he was due and that we would meet with the bank and title company to discuss it.  We have heard nothing from him since.
I tracked down Marty's supplier, called them on 12/30/08 and learned that our windows were there, but nothing had been paid on them (Marty had drawn $3000 for them) and they would be putting a mechanic's lien on our property in 30 days.  The bill for the windows was ~$9000 and they would check their records to see what else was on Marty's account for our project that they would be demanding from us.  I told them I would work to get them $4000 in a few weeks if that would ease the pressure on them placing the lien, he said it would.  I spoke to J***** of J***** Lumber 217-***-****.  He told me that he did not think there was much else on the account, but he has yet to contact me with the amount.  My understanding is that he has been a supplier for Marty for many years and Marty currently has other projects ongoing on account with him.
Current status of house is very near what is was on 9/13/08.  There has been a small amount of plumbing work done, but the electrical is unfinished and still in house wrap with no windows and no ability to do much more inside until they are installed.
On 1/06/09 I got copies of the lien waivers collected by ***** Title Co. And, other than those we have supplied, they are all signed off by Davis Caves, nothing from suppliers or subcontractors.  Additionally the first draw of $24000 only has a single waiver for $8000.  The second draw has waivers for all but the plumbing, which was paid to Marty despite the line item listing the sub as payee.  (Sub) has also worked with Marty for many years so I have avoided calling him to ask if he received the money as I fear it will give him the excuse to ask for more regardless.  (bank) maintains that the next payout cannot be made until all lien waivers from the previous draw have been collected. 
When we questioned (title officer) (10/31/08, before we had the copies of the collected waivers) she said (title company) had done everything correctly and the problem was not their fault.  Marty said he was doing everything and they collected lien waivers from him. 
When we signed the paperwork at ***** Title we were told that they made sure that the payouts were done correctly.  Marty had to show receipts for materials and lien waivers for everything.  We were also told that if the actual cost was less than the line item the difference stayed in the loan and that Marty was not entitled to any remainders.  That we could apply funds from any underages to overages elsewhere.

Also (bank) states our contract with them makes us liable for all of their legal costs if they go to court.  They also informed me that Marty can sue them if they pay anyone else the funds to build with, and that he has up to two years to do so.  

My research seems to indicate that the bentonite waterproofing was not used as Marty specified..
Summery of collected lien waivers (supplied by  ***** Title Co., supposed to be all collected waivers, received 1/06/09).
Dated              From                           Amount          For
7/29/08            Davis Caves Inc.         $8000.00         capenter** labor and other labor and materials
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $15500.00       lumber and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $1400.00         floors and drives and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $2500.00         footings and walls and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $3000.00         sewer/septic and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $1000.00         excavating/grading and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $7560.00         capenter** labor and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $850.00           electrical and other labor and material
8/23/08            Davis caves Inc           $3560.00         profit/overhead and other labor and material
Subtotal of lien waivers supplied
by Davis Caves Inc.                           $43370.00
9/04/08          Homeowner                $3750.00   flooring and other labor and material
9/04/08          Homeowner                 $390.06    ceramic/plastic wall tile and other labor and material
9/04/08          Homeowner                 $258.49           appliance allowance and other labor and material
11/18/08          S***** Backhoe*         $5089.14         septic system and other labor and material
11/18/08          M***** Ready Mix*   $7169.97         concrete and other labor and materials
11/18/08          Mr. M***** *         $300.00           septic service and other labor and material
*These payments made from (homeowners) and not drawn from the construction loan.
**Spelling on the lien waiver.

Friday, October 19, 2012

My last visit to the property


Construction as last I saw it.  I do not recommend house wrap as final exterior finish.  It saves on construction costs, but does not hold up well.

Interior images




Interior images of house as left by the builder, Davis Caves, one of the many odd points is that he did send our attorney a letter confirming that he received the extra funds he extorted wanted.

Information from another blog I was writing.

Our house as "finished" by Davis Caves builders.

It has been quite a time since the last post. Laura was hospitalized in August of 2008 with acute pancreatitis (idiopathic), she was in the hospital for 2 weeks and had a 4 month recovery time before returning to work. She was back in the hospital late spring 2009 with the same symptoms as well as severe ongoing pain, nausea, and other problems. Several trips to the Mayo Clinic later (after many doctors before the Mayo referral) it looks like she may be permanently disabled.

Davis Caves walked off the job in September of 2008 demanding that we pay them nearly $10 thousand dollars for tree removal. In order to force us to comply it turned out that he took money from the construction loan and did not use it to pay for supplies and sub-contractors as he was required to. Zelle Title of Springfield was managing the payments to him, and were required to obtain mechanic's lien wavers for all payments. They did not. In fact Marty only accounted for about $40k of the $80k he had been paid.

This first came to my attention via a call from the concrete plant regarding lack of payments from concrete delivered in early July and Davis Caves' lack of response to demands of payment. Marty first assured me the payment had been made and a week later we got the email saying he was off the job until he got the extra money from us. We quickly found that he had also failed to pay the septic contractor, nor had he ordered the windows with the window money he had drawn earlier. We were immediately on the hook for over $12,000.00 of unpaid bills that Marty had already been paid for.

Marty's argument revolved around the fact that he wanted the additional money and was not convinced by the contract he signed that stated the tree removal was included in the contract price. He could produce no evidence that we owed him this money, he even stated in a conference call with the bank, the title company, and myself that he did not pay these bills in order to put pressure on us to force us to pay him this additional money. To me this sounds illegal, but it turns out we are in civil contract law territory and the only way to resolve it is to take him to court.

The bank advised paying him off as the easiest way to finish the house. I was not ready to hand him more money and he refused to work on the house so the bank agreed to set up an escrow account to hold the money until he finished the job. Marty Davis agreed. A few weeks later when I had the money in hand he refused the escrow account, saying he wanted the money "up front, with no conditions" he now wanted the money with no promise of paying the outstanding bills or finishing the house.

I was about a week (Dec. 1, 2008 was my foreclosure deadline) from having the property foreclosed on via a mechanic's lien and could not afford to lose any more money so I paid the bills directly, contacted Marty, told him to take his $10k from what I paid, return my change and return to work. He promised to check his schedule and then asked for the remaining money for the septic system (it came in under budget, so he took the money to pay for the septic, forced me to pay for it again, and then wanted the money left in the septic line item that he had not already taken) I suggested we meet with the bank to discuss this and I did not hear from him again for months.

All during this time Laura was seeing specialists trying to determine why her condition was not improving and what else might be an issue. Since she was the one with the real job the last of our savings were used getting through the recovery period and two attorneys told us to expect to spend up to $60,000.00 to take Davis Caves to court, lacking that sort of money the suggestion was to finish the house and move on.

We did learn that in Illinois a mechanic's lien could only be properly filed within a certain number of months of the general contractor working on the job. Under legal counsel we waited for that time to expire before sending a letter to Davis Caves that we would finish the house with a different builder and pointing out that they had not accounted for $40,000.00. We had to convince the bank that Davis Caves would not be suing them for breaking the contract by paying someone else to finish. So while this contract sure seemed like it could not help us, it could still be used against us!

About the time the letter from our attorney was going out I started getting demands for another thousands more from Marty's primary supplier. Including about $9000.00 for the windows we had never gotten. They sent me copies of the bills on my "account" in the normal convoluted process for this industry they claimed it was "my" account, even though it said bill to Davis Caves at the top and the only reference to our project was a deliver to field. Even though I had the mechanic's lien wavers from Davis Caves for building supplies in excess of what had been paid, and was still owed the supplier claimed I had to pay them. He even explained that I could not see all of the invoices on "my" account, only the ones Marty told him to send. I asked about what was physically delivered to my job, versus what Marty picked up I was told that there would be a delivery fee listed for what they delivered, until I explained that none of the bills had a delivery fee on them. Then I was told that the lack of delivery fee did not actually mean they were not delivered, and I was told they had no way of tracking their deliveries and it was impossible to tell what was delivered to us and what was not. As the supplier was over an hours drive away, and everything I saw being delivered to the site (other than concrete) came in a Davis Caves vehicle I believe I had very few, if any, "deliveries" from them. But the game is played so that the supplier can force foreclosure regardless of these facts, except that he missed the window, Davis Caves had been off the job too long by this time to allow his claim to me (I think he has 2 years to get the money from Davis Caves).

I found it interesting that the next week I got an email from Marty offering to come out and do some work on the place as an act of "good faith" on his part. My attorney pointed out that if Davis Caves came on the property and drove a single nail, they could then walk back off and his suppliers would have the chance to put liens on the property. We had to decline this offer as he had shown himself not to be trustworthy.

Davis Caves did threaten to sue us for breach of contract if we hired anyone else to finish the house. They also fabricated a demand for payment for money they had received (over $16,000.00 that was the third payout from the construction loan) forcing me to spend a few hundred more dollars on a reply and proof that they had gotten the money (and cashed it) in early September of 2008. I thought this jab was really indicative of Marty Davis's true character. Either he was too stupid to know he had been paid over $16,000.00 or he was just making the claim to be vindictive, I do not think the bookkeeping at Davis Caves is that poor, or that he is stupid.