Chadmor Homes

Chadmore Homes – aka. Sammy F.

My wife and I hired Sammy F., owner of Chadmor Homes to build our new house on a wooded lot in Wake Forest, NC. We signed a contract with him on March 3, 2014. When we settled on a specific house plan, Sammy promised he would “build your house in three months.” I immediately questioned him on that timeline. He insisted that he would build our house in three months. It should be noted that I didn’t need him to build the house in three months. Five or six months would have been acceptable, but he strongly asserted that he would build our house in three months.
UPDATE: Sammy is now working for another builder in the area. This should be kept in mind if hiring contractors/builders.
To jump ahead to the end of the story, it took him over 9 months to get us in the house (and another 6 weeks to complete minor outstanding items.) He missed 5 completion dates – dates that he personally set. July 31 was the original promised date. That got pushed back 6 weeks to Oct. 15. He then said he only needed until Oct. 17. That date passed and he said he could have it done by Oct. 23. Not even close. Oct 31 – nope. He was fully aware all this time that as of Oct. 31, our rental house contract would expire and we would have no place to live. We were forced to live in a hotel for two weeks (with two dogs) while he tried to meet yet another completion date. We finally closed on Nov. 14, 2014 – and we were only sure he would meet that date the evening before.
He still owes us $500 reimbursement for the deposit we put on the land. He refuses to return that money. He has not paid numerous (at least 4 that I know of) sub-contractors for the work they did on the house, saddling them with costs they can ill afford. Several of them have filed liens against our house for payment. We paid Sammy F. the full amount due him. He has taken this money and refused to pay the sub-contractors. I have encouraged the subs to sue Sammy F. personally.
It should also be noted that we incurred major (well over $8,000) expenses due to his delays in completing the house - the hotel stay, meals, extra rental of the Pods, rescheduling of movers…) Sammy F. asserted that he was in no way responsible for the delays and refused to cover any portion of the extra costs. In fact, Sammy never once took responsibility for any of the delays. If this had been a young family with children, these added expenses could have been devastating. When I pointed this out to Sammy F., he appeared unconcerned.
Several contractors have since told me that Sammy F. has a reputation within the community of not being organized and not writing things down. This would explain why he kept asking me the same questions over and over, even though he had a clearly delineated and organized spec sheet with all the manufacturers, model numbers, colors and locations, and that he kept getting the same answers from me each time he asked those same questions.
Herein resides one of my biggest concerns with Chadmor Homes and Sammy. If he had some news that we would want to hear, he contacted us right away. Conversely, if I inquired about some part of the build that was not going well, he would simply ignore my attempts to get an answer. He also ignored attempts by my realtor to contact him. This became a regular routine, so it came to be known around our house as, “No news is bad news.” I called him for over two weeks, attempting to get just one question answered. He did not respond to me in any manner. I had to call his lawyer to get a reply. Later, I sent an email about a few repairs that were under contract. I asked that he review the email and respond to me within 7 days. Again, he did not respond. Again, I was forced to contact his lawyer in an attempt to get an answer.
I unequivocally DO NOT recommend Sammy F. as a builder, or even a sub-contracting worker if you are considering building a new home.