A New Jersey family is embroiled in a dispute with a pool company based in New York. A consumer attorney tells Kane In Your Corner that the case could serve as a cautionary tale for people who undertake home improvement work.<\/p>\n
Beatrice Menendez says her backyard pool has always been a gathering place for her kids and grandchildren. So earlier this year, Menendez dove into a renovation.<\/p>\n
She signed a contract for $20,000 with a New York company called Pete\u2019s Pool Service to repair the pool and install a new deck. The business arrangement went sour, and Menendez kicked the pool company off her property. By then, she had paid $16,000 of the $20,000 total bill, so she asked for a refund to cover work she says was unfinished.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of the $16,000, I was asking him to give me $10,000. And he said \u201cno,\u201d that he didn’t have to give anything back,\u201d Menendez says.<\/p>\n
The owner of Pete\u2019s Pool Service, Pete Pantoja, tells Kane In Your Corner that he doesn\u2019t owe Menendez a refund, because he feels he already completed 80 percent of the work. He also accuses the family of failing to return some of his tools.<\/p>\n
The Menendez family aren\u2019t the only customers with complaints. Kane In Your Corner heard from two other dissatisfied customers, and the Better Business Bureau gives Pete\u2019s Pool Service a rating of \u201cF.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consumer attorney Ken Vercammen says when home improvement deals go bad, customers are left with few options other than taking a contractor to court. He advises consumers to head off problems by researching the contractor in advance and ensuring that the contract clearly specifies what work the contractor should complete before each payment is due.<\/p>\n
Vercammen also advises hiring a contractor from state where you reside. Menendez lives in New Jersey, but her contractor is based in New York.<\/p>\n
Vercammen says, \u201cit’s almost like crazy to hire someone from out of state,\u201d because the legal process becomes so much more complicated. \u201cYou could sue the contractor and get a judgment\u2026 but then you have to domesticate that judgment in another state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menendez says the experience has been eye opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned that you can’t trust people. It’s very sad, but you got to just check them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Jersey family is embroiled in a dispute with a pool company based in New York. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-301629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}