Kobalt Constructon Matthew R. O'Dell AKA "Chuck" Scammed by contractor - didn't finish work, DIDN'T PAY HIS SUBCONTRACTORS! Johnston, Iowa

We hired Matt O'Dell (Kobalt Construction) to completely finish our basement.  He started the work the week of June 6th, 2011.  We paid him $25,946 in a series of payments between June and September and purchased an additional $2000 in materials.

On September 14th I found out that he had not filed a building permit as he had stated and further electrical and plumbing inspections had not been completed.  The next day told me that the permits were a "mixup downtown" and that he would meet me on Friday, Sept. 16th to straighten it out.  That was the last time he answered his phone.

Since then I have found out that he did not pay any of the subcontractors or for any of the materials used on the job other than what we personally paid for.  Besides the money that we already paid Matt we are out an additional $7,911 to get the job completed.

There are also numerous quality issues that need to be corrected: The stairs need to be taken apart and rebuilt and one of the heating ducts apparently wasn’t even hooked up, just stuck in the ceiling and drywalled over.  Plus the building inspector wants a support post redone and I just got off the phone with him and he wants me to cut a hole in a wall so that he can inspect the post on the other end.  And there's more...  Now the subcontractors are filing mechanics liens aganst our house!