Larkin Custom Homes | R M Custom Homes, Inc.| d**k Larkin Homes | Larkin Homes Building with Larkin Homes is a Nightmare! Danville Indiana

RM Larkin Custom Homes Inc, is responding to the above allegations in the following manor. We have never heard of the company Ripp Off. But please be advised, they do not verify any facts or allegations that is send to them. Unlike the better business bureau which  most people are aware of.  Which is why this client we feel, used this company. The Better Business Bureau only prints things from the actual events and outcome of a legal litigation. Yes, our company did unfortunately  go to a litigation process with this customer, whom was very unreasonable, and hard to please or work with. We learned after the fact this client, was in a law suit with a previous builder for him.  

We take tremendous pride in our name and reputation of  the last 20  years of  being in business, with an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.  We have many return clients, and made lifelong friends through our years in business. But if you are in business that long, you will come through a couple of people with less integrity and dishonesty. We have an award of full discloser of the outcome of the arbitration.  And are proud to say there was NO awards to this man, whom only provided the lies he tried to push through.

In fact, he was told to pay us the balance he owed us, and pursue us no more. So, we feel this why he choose to  put this on this particular web-site. This was only done after the outcome of Arbitration process ,and he was denied.  ( Oh and by the way Ripp- Off,  then comes after the company for lot of money to take it down.) Sorry, but not good integrity or business practice.  We conclude, our name, reputation and referrals will stand through this. We can provide the documentation to show it!

This homeowner has a track record of building homes and suing the builders.  He also, talks about double dipping, but we provided copies of all the checks that went to the bank and the matching bills.  The homeowner purchased his own flooring and got several bids on the installation.  It was his decision to hire me (Adam) to install the flooring after I  provided him with a bid.  He paid cash for the home and went through every bill to make sure that he was receiving his money’s worth before he would give a draw.   The homeowner, as he said watched like a hawk, which is good because we have nothing to hide.  As any reputable contractor will tell you, when someone (anyone) is micro managing a project, it is more difficult to work efficiently.  He would act buddy-buddy with the subs and then twist the truth as if he were playing a game of manipulation to put them against each other.  He has a severe temper and is very disrespectful.  I would really hate to meet up with him in a dark alley.  He lies about almost everything that is reported on here.  We had been told that he moved away from the place where he had lived because his neighbors were very much concerned with the interactions they had with him. 

We were also told that his previous neighbors would back this statement up if we were to ask any of them.  Dad (Richard) has never had anyone picket in front of house or anything negative like this.  We work tirelessly to do everything the right way first time, but if there is a problem, we do everything within our power to fix the issue.  We have lived in Avon and the Larkins have graduated from Avon High School.  We have had over 5 generations of Larkins in Avon dating back to great grandparents.  We would not do anything to bring shame to our family and thus try to always make our clients happy.  We are people pleasers and can give you a list of many, many people for which we have built and/or remodeled houses.  Both my father and I come from retail and farming backgrounds.  In response to the allegation in the report, that we have had to build homes in Bloomington and outside of our home area due to our reputation, I can only say that we build homes all over from Muncie to Bloomington and in between.  Word of mouth from our many satisfied customers has led to us having “friends” all over the State that highly recommend us and therefore we have grown our work area.  If this report was factual, I don’t think that we would still be in business.  We made it through the housing crash and even grew during this time.  I personally will give the shirt off my back to help people out.  Some tell me that this is a “fault” of mine, but it is my nature.  We have made good on warranties on houses and have gone back even after five years to fix an issue that has arisen.  We take care of our people!! 

The way contractors work is that the jobs involved in the building of a house are bid on by the subs and also by the builder to be sure that the pricing is reasonable.  The homeowners see the bids and help make the decision on who will get the jobs.  We guarantee not to go over unless you wish to change something and put a change order in place letting us know of the change. 

We hate confrontation and have been ignoring this because we did not want the conflict.  It has been brought to our attention that a response in rebuttal is needed so that people know both sides of the story.   Along with this rebuttal, attached is the report from the arbitrator that shows the series of lies that are reported here.  It can be seen that the homeowner didn’t post until after the arbitrator’s decision was completed.  The homeowners lost and had to pay for several items and the arbitrator’s costs. 

In response to the report filed in 2013, I would like to submit the following information:  First, The homeowner even though he doesn’t say so had the choice on all subs. We do realize that the homeowners want the home built a specific way, but if they want to use certain items from “friends”, change materials, and get more expensive materials installed, there has to be some give and take on the part of the homeowners and the building contractor.  We were trying to make him happy and stay within budget by doing the electrical in-house using the electrical items he bought from a friend that cost more.  Additionally, we put extra work into the electrical and went above code adding a lot of extra plugs in the house.  We did this gratis (without charge).  We also ran extra homeruns and added a lot of extra can lights, plugs and switches.  Also, the countertops I first installed were quartz which the homeowner said he wanted rather than the granite.  I ended up losing money on the countertops where I used granite, which the homeowner did not like and we had to replace it with laminate tops.  Many times, I had to step in between the homeowner and my father because the homeowner was extremely confrontational.  The next moment, the homeowner would be very apologetic, crying and saying how sorry he was.  This would happen several times and so quickly occur that it was like flipping a switch.  Needless to say, this was very stressful conditions to be working under. My father and I are people pleasers, which is good, but can also be very bad as it was in this circumstance.  The homeowner ran us through the ringer and created a roller coaster of emotions and stress.  I tried to do everything above and beyond to help him and I thought I had met and exceeded his expectations until I saw this report.   I was shocked!!  Because I really do not like confrontational circumstances, I have been avoiding answering this report. 

The only “true” statement in the report is that this homeowner did take the company to arbitration and received a ruling on the flooring which we wanted to fix in the first place.  The homeowner wanted all of the first floor torn out and was denied except we had to pay for repair of a sag in floor.  This would have been done even without the arbitration because we do warrant our homes.  When we became aware of this issue was after closing on the house.  The issue had not been seen before the closing.  The floor was sagging on a load bearing wall by the kitchen.  We followed the arbitrator’s decision by giving the homeowner the money to fix it rather than fixing it ourselves.  With regard to the cook top that he bought from a friend that worked for a distributor where he purchased his appliances, I handled it and fixed it even though technically this had nothing to do with us or the building of the house.  Prior to receiving a draw for the next stage of the home, the homeowner received copies of all bills and had to sign off on them.

Lastly, Dad has built over 230 homes since starting the company.  We have built many second and third homes for our customers.   I believe that if we were a “bad” company, those people would have moved on to another contractor.  Also, as to the allegation that there were 3 other arbitration problems, this is not the case.  We can supply many people as references both in the past and currently if anyone would like to have these names.  I also, will post the reports from arbitrator.