Paul Gorrell Block Homes Consulting Paul Gorrell Tried to Rip me off with a contractor Somerset New Jersey

What happened to us is a story you hear all the time. A contractor running off with a job half done or got paid and didn't finish but it comes with a twist. We purchased a fixer upper home in 2017 that fell under the 203k loan guidelines. Because of this we would have a 203k consultant to oversee the work being done on our home by work specifications that later became the contract the contractor would go by. Paul Gorrell would be the one who would oversee the contractor's work and that things were getting done and in a timely manner. With us not knowing anything about this type of loan or dealing with contractors. I thought that having a 203k consultant would help make things easier. We did some research and come across some names of consultants including Paul Gorrell. There was the report on this site my better half saw. It was the only thing we could find at the time and I spoke up for a person I didn't even know. We would find out later that Paul Gorrell didn't write down everything we wanted to have repaired in the home on our specifications. This would later become extra or an add-on because he purposely left it out of the original specifications. I did notice a few things were missing and called him about it. He would tell me that nothing is written in stone and things can be changed. Because of the way the specifications was written and how Paul Gorrell would later not be willing to change the specifications. It would be harder for us to get a qualified contractor as the money wasn't put in the right area's. The specifications were written unbalanced with money as some contractors pointed out. Paul Gorrell was unwilling to change or rearrange the specifications and made it very hard for us to hire a contractor. Paul Gorrell after a while would say he know a guy which was part of his plan form the start. He would make it hard for us so he could put in a contractor he could trust to run his scam on us. We did get a contractor with him at some point to get our project going not knowing any better. But after a short period of time things got out of control. Once the contractor agreed to the work specifitions and signed the contract. Once he started to get paid he would say he didn't have enough money to complete some of the repairs. Paul Gorrell would then suggest not to do a part of the house as the money could be moved around. So we did agree not to fix the garage to fix another part of the house which was part of his plan. The garage needs to be replaced still to this date in 2023 that was a part of the contract, but wasn't replaced because of Paul Gorrell saying "take the money from the garage and pay the contractor you can fix it later." At some point, the contractor stopped working. Paul Gorrell said he can't get him on the phone anymore and the contractor would then show up once a week doing poor workmanship. He would also missed two deadlines to complete the house so we could not move in. Our problem was we were at the time paying the mortgage on the house and rent at the apartment we were staying. It was most important that we moved into the house that now is being dragged out by the contractor. By now we started to reallize the contrator and Paul Gorrell are working together. By them making pay day dates together without telling us, and the contractor now not answering the phone we knew something was going on. Paul Gorrell was calling us and saying the contractor needs money and Paul Gorrell needs to get paid everytime he shows up to the house. Paul Gorrell uses a contractor as a part of his scheme making you feel like your house won't get done. The day we finally were to have the house certified to move in, the contractor quit. The contractor even went down to the buildings department where the inspectors are and gave them a letter saying that he was no longer the contractor on the job. Also that he did not know who was doing the work on the house and not to do the inspection. The contractor even knocked down the handrails on the front steps to keep us from passing the inspection. We called the buildings department after the time for them to show up passed and found out the contractor was there and asked them to still come. In the mean time I did fix the handrails before the inspectors started to show up. But we failed on some work that he did and we had to get another contractor to come behind him to fix his mistakes. A couple of weeks later our phones were getting calls from a number we didn't recognize. The person on the phone said we only had days to respone to a arbitration the contractor had filed he was sueing us for over 80 thousand dollars. We found out later the contract gave out our numbers as fax numbers in a effort to make him win by default if we didn't answer back. We did get our answer in just in time and now had to go to an arbitration that was going to cost us even more money we didn't have. Getting an attorney to defend us against what was coming. So I asked Paul Gorrell for help but It became very clear very quickly that Paul Gorrell was a part of this scheme. That was to hold the house hostage by not having the work done on the house unless we came up with money that was not a part of the contract. We were told by the bank not to give any money extra outside of the loan. This later became so helpful when we didn't give in even though we were struggling at this point. Paul Gorrell made it look like he was there for us as the home owner but he even testified against us at arbitration in an effort to make us lose. We found out they were after money left in the loan more then 80 thousand dollars they were going to split. Thankfully the arbitrator saw that the contractor was trying to get money for work outside the contract he signed. We did win in the end but lost thousands of dollars to an attorney.  Paul Gorrell will act as your friend just to see if he can figure out how he can rob you. He would talk to me on his personal time but would lied to me over and over again in an effort for a big pay day. If anyone says that he is a good man either didn't get rob by him or is just lying. Please do not trust Paul Gorrell of Block's Home Consulting. Doing so may only bring you trouble and lost money.