Problems related to home improvement contractors are the third most common consumer complaint received by the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, which is located at One Ashburton Place in Boston.
Home improvement problems topped the list of consumer complaints filed with state and local consumer protection agencies last year, according to a recently released national survey.
The annual survey also revealed that complaints against home improvement contractors are on the rise and that home improvement is the type of industry in which a company is mostly likely to go out of business and to reopen under another name.
The survey results may not be a surprise for some. Home improvement has ranked as one of the top five complaints in previous surveys, according to Nancy Sabella, executive director the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators, which conducted the study along with the Consumer Federation of America. But in this year’s survey, home improvement was also selected as the “fastest growing complaint category.”
The increase in home improvement complaints is a result of a combination of factors, including the fact that home sales and prices have climbed rapidly in recent years, according to consumer protection agency officials.
“There’s a lot more home improvement going on than there has been before,” said Sabella. “The housing market is tight. People are choosing to stay in their homes and making improvements” instead of searching for a new home, she said.
In Massachusetts, where home sales have been strong in recent years, many people are also hiring contractors to make small and big improvements to houses they recently purchased.
“There is just a massive number of properties being bought and sold,” said Paul Schlaver, executive director of the Cambridge Consumers’ Council.
The number of complaints involving home improvement projects that the council handles has been “fairly consistent” in the last few years but hasn’t really increased, he said. Between 10 and 13 percent of the complaints that the council receives involve home improvement, according to Schlaver. That translates into about 35 out of 350 formal written complaints that the council handles in a typical year.
On a statewide basis, 2,720 complaints related to home improvement have been filed with the attorney general’s office since January 2001. Of those, 1,590 were filed last year, and 1,130 have been filed so far this year.
Complaints at Home
Unlike the national survey results, home improvement complaints were actually the third most common complaint received by the state Office of the Attorney General, according to Sarah Nathan, a spokesman in the attorney general’s office. There were more filed complaints involving retail and auto sales. The most common complaint under the home improvement category, however, was failure to complete work, said Nathan.
The Consumer Protection and Anti-Trust Division in the attorney general’s office collects information from and provides funding to 14 local consumer protection agencies. The division reviews the complaints searching for patterns and trends and then determines how to pursue the individual cases. Often, there is an attempt to conduct some type of mediation.
The release of the NACAA survey comes just as a Bay State contractor had his home improvement contractor’s and construction supervisor licenses suspended indefinitely after state and Boston city officials received numerous complaints about him.
Patrick Magure, who also operated under the names of Patrick Maguire, Patrick V. MaGuire and listed addresses in Quincy, Dorchester, Milton and Somerville, had his licenses suspended after a hearing held by the Board of Building Regulations and Standards. The Boston Inspectional Services Department had investigated seven complaints against Magure over the past two years.
According to the Inspectional Services Department, Magure used false names, took excessive and illegal down payments before completing work, failed to meet deadlines and other contract terms despite having received partial payments. Magure was investigated for cases involving residents across the city, including Hyde Park, West Roxbury, Dorchester, Roslindale and Roxbury.
Magure operated under the names Oak Construction, M&M Construction and Granite City Remodeling and was contracted to do various renovations like rewiring, new light fixtures, plaster and new flooring. Some contracts totaled over $25,000, according to Inspectional Services.
Magure is just one of several “problem” contractors investigated by Inspectional Services recently. Other contractors include Earl and James Petland of Northeast Home Energy in Grafton, and Joseph Ludvigsen, also operating as Nordic Construction.
Other regions in Massachusetts were also plagued with home improvement problems. According to the NACAA survey, which cited trends and the “worst scams” of 2001, the mayor’s office of consumer information in Springfield received several complaints about home improvement contractors that failed to perform and/or complete work or performed shoddy repair work.
Bay State consumers, however, have some recourse if they end up hiring a contractor who goes out of business and fails to complete work. A law was passed in 1992 that requires contractors in Massachusetts to register with the state Board of Building Regulations and Standards and pay a special fee that goes into a residential guaranty fund. Victims of home improvement contracting scams who have used a registered contractor can collect some lost money – up to $10,000 – from the fund for unpaid judgments. The state also has an arbitration program to help homeowners resolve disputes with registered contractors.
The state Office of Consumer Affairs and business regulation also has a Web site dedicated solely to home improvement. Sabella said that Web sites like these have helped consumers become much more savvy.
“Consumer education is much higher than it ever was before,” she said. “There’s certainly a lot more information available especially on the Internet.”
