NY AG Shuts Down Home Improvement Contractor For Stiffing Buffalo-Area Homeowners

From the New York Attorney General's Office:

• Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo [last week] announced that a Buffalo area custom home builder that repeatedly defrauded customers has been put out of business and ordered to pay more than $325,000 in penalties and restitution. A lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office resulted in a State Supreme Court order issued today requiring the owners of Elite Custom Homes, Inc., Steven Wisniewski and April L. Januale, to pay $300,000 in restitution and $6,000 in costs. Wisniewski, additionally, was ordered to pay a $25,000 penalty. Both will be barred from the home improvement business unless they file a $500,000 performance bond.

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• Among the instances of fraud detailed in court documents: (1) The couple took $158,400 to build a home for a family – and only built a basement, valued at less than $25,000; (2) A family submitted an advance payment of $6,800 for a landscaping contract totaling $9,700 - Elite Homes did not provide services worth that amount and, in fact, broke four sewer vent pipes, resulting in the family having to pay $11,100 to repair the damage Wisniewski caused and to complete the work he did not do; (3) Wisniewski and Januale forwarded $6,500 from a family to buy materials from a supplier, then stopped payment to the company, leading it to threaten to place a lien on the family’s home.

For more, see Attorney General Cuomo Shuts Down Buffalo Home Builder Who Repeatedly Defrauded Consumers (Used customers’ payments for personal expenses, failed to build homes for multiple families throughout Western New York).

For other posts on homeowners left in the lurch due to actions by builders/contractors, go here, go here, and go here. contractors stiff subs customers zeta Cuomo hammers contractors