We had an experience very similar to yours. Huge bid, dollar wise, no effort to meet our budget, and we, too, went in another direction. We did know up front that there would be a fee of $3K for the design, but that it would be absorbed into the cost of the project. We paid that amount and the person we were working with pulled some dishonest things that were not acceptable to us and we did not work with them. My husband was so disgusted, he didn't even want to go back to ask for a refund. It was a really bad experience and we would not go through a design service again. It was a fairly large remodel and we had a really nice contractor and his two sons do the job for a third of their price. If you did not have a contract with a price for the design, I would think you owe them nothing. I would like to know how they think they can get you to pay them more if there was no contract and no work done. Let us know how this turns out and good luck!

From a legal standpoint I would review exactly the documents both parties have signed as that will be the first thing any mediator or judge would look at. If you have signed any sort of design contract there should be a clause in there that allows either party to terminate services so long as you pay for the services provided to date. If they are claiming that you owe them money for services rendered ask to see an itemized list including dates and hourly fees for all work done to date. My guess is that since they wouldn't give you and itemized breakdown of your construction bids they may not have all their accounting and finances in order. I am always amazed at how many seemingly successful businesses wing it in that area. In any case thar should put their feet to the fire so to speak to show how they have arrived at their bill. Assuming you have not paid them this money yet, they will have the burden of proof there to show you what exactly you owe them money for. If you have overpaid them in advance you will have a big uphill battle to recoup that money. Good luck! These situations are never pleasant.

agevm, it is somewhat comforting to hear we are not alone. megcblu, itemization - jeez! (slaps own head), of course - can't believe that I forgot that one. Man - appreciate the reminder.

13% is not unusual for a design fee for a professional firm . . . look to your contract, but don't be afraid to go to small claims if you feel you are owed money. . . the judge may agree that you were not provided the services claimed. . . if however, you built substantially what they designed, then it will be difficult to prove they designed something over your budget . . was DIY always part of the pact or was that your idea to accomplish some of the elements they showed you for less? design-build at the residential level is typically not a great deal for the client UNLESS there is a contingency built in and the level of quality of finishes are specified in an addendum to the contract

Contracts are everything. Without signatures, there is nothing proventing you from walking away. In court/mediation, "He who has the most paper work wins". You have receipts, you have designs in hand...but there was never any "boots on the ground" from the company. You've paid out fees but you've also paid a "Construction Deposit". It is possible you could go after the construction deposit but it will be an uphill battle.

Did you receive any materials (building materials) from them? Did you receive any fabric/finishings that were ordered/received through them? If you did, then money is owing on those items...which could be taken out of the Construction deposit.

A $300 chat with a lawyer would go a long way on this one.

The only thing we have in hand from them is the single set of non-final plans, which they say they still own. Meanwhile, they have ALL the copies of our existing house plans (from previous owners remodels), and have not returned them despite 3+ months of asking for their return.

So no, we have ABSOLUTELY nothing to show for more than 15k of expenses.

Oh, these design plans have only the most basic of electrical layout - and not even correct, as it has them adding fixtures and outlets where they already exist.

Go to small claims . . ask for your existing house plans AND some of your $ back. The judge will ask for a contract and learning there is none, will give you what you ask for . . . they are a business operating without a contract. That also probably violates the contractors license they must hold to do this work in their state. Look online to find out what the basic rules are, and consider if you feel they should be reported. Before you file, write them a very polite demand letter stating the same things you will tell/ ask the judge for and give them a deadline that after which (10 days) you will then proceed with legal action. That way you can show the judge that you did ask, they heard and still did not communicate in a professional manner. If you already have email correspondence, just file and take it all in to the judge.

libradesigneye, I appreciate your input, but as I said up front, we have NO contract, and what paperwork we do have does not support their viewpoint, nor does it really contradict it. 13% and more WOULD be fair assuming the project went to completion, but it never got beyond the design stage - that's where I am at a loss.

BTW: Sure, we are upset - but I am the son of a contractor (of a different sort), and thus no matter how angry I am, I still feel they deserve to be paid what they earned. I just feel that they are asking for way more than they rightfully are due.

Cancork Floor Inc. and CMYfabriK Interior Designs, I really appreciate your responses - I am trying to balance out what we feel they are owed with a viewpoint coming from the other side (designer/professional side) of the picture. But, as I mentioned, we are technically being left with NOTHING, as they have made quite clear the design is theirs. The work I am now doing bears little resemblance to their designs, other than what is dictated by the floor plan. I am a big proponent of intellectual property, and wouldn't attempt to steal it (for example, even though we did consult a couple of other builders, we didn't show these plans to them, or really anyone else.)

But bottom-line, it's hard to say we owe them as much as they are asking for when we are being left with nothing at the end of it.

We also aren't that interested in court. About the one thing we have over their heads is the "threat" of bad publicity. I assume that any consideration they give us will be tied to a non-disclosure (one of the reasons that I am not identifying anything in these notes).

Cguy, we are in alignment with your thinking about paying someone for the work they do and wanting to be fair. The design firm that we worked with did some renderings for us, however, ALL of the design was our well thought out plans we had been figuring on paper for years. Like I said, their charge was $3K for the plans and then we were supposed to use them for the entire construction which consisted of adding 450 sq ft to our home, which would be our new kitchen, with a butler's pantry, a large two car garage with a bathroom, an 1100 square ft. L shaped patio, raising ceilings, which had our duct work in them for our AC, new AC ducts, new windows, adding three large sliding doors...I think that was it. All they did was the renderings...no plans to submit to the city for our permit. It was a well-known firm here and we interviewed several contractors. We were disappointed, to say the least. However, we ended up with an awesome smaller contractor who did superior work and was as honest as the day is long. I just wanted to lay out what was done for us, so you can have an idea if you are being fair. From what you have said, it is my opinion you have been more than fair if you have already paid them $15K and had really nothing to show for it. Sure the conversations during this process are helpful during this time, however, it appears this firm you are dealing with are being very unreasonable and unprofessional. Again, best of luck and if you think about it let us know how it turns out. I hope this helps.

Well, if anyone is still reading this, I GREATLY appreciate the input. Unfortunately, as has been their modus operandi, they refused to provide ANY time sheets, billing, etc... leaving us with the only thought possible - their entire process is a black box, with no relationship to reality. Fortunately, there is a Home Improvement Commission that we can appeal to first, before having to go the legal route.

Cguy I'm just trying to understand at this point...are you trying to recoup money already paid (going to be difficult) or are you trying to decide if you owe them additional money? If its the former, I would assume that money is gone and will be a big battle to get back. If it is the latter and you have no real contract then I would ignore them as they don't have a leg to stand on. It sounds like the work is done already on your home so I'm not sure if I would pursue them further to get the plans back. They probably won't do much good now and since they are not technical construction/engineering plans would be of little use to any builder.

But seriously, I want to know how you got 15k into a project- even if only conceptual in nature- without anything in writing?!? When you retained their services did they give you any paperwork outlining the scope of their services? Or did you just hand them a check? Did they give you any receipts of any kind? It's quite a large sum of money to fork over without any paperwork at all. Even my gardener who barely writes in English gives me a small invoice with some breakdown of costs (and his bill has never been over $600).

It sounds like you have some previous experience working with contractors so I'm not sure how this could have happened. Everyone myself included has fallen victim to a smooth talking, likable salesperson so am wondering if this is the case here. Did you just "click" with the designer and suddenly realize you had no real contract when things went south? I'm just trying to understand because many people on jobs of all sizes/budgets can learn from this situation.

We DO have some paperwork, of course. But you are correct, we SHOULD have waited until the contract was signed before laying out extra $$, but the designer has done many houses in this neighborhood, and is very well thought of - just with a different firm. Our mistake.

So, a BRIEF outline.

We have 2 design agreements that we signed, and we paid for those. No argument here at all.

We have a scope of work that we all signed, and paid 10% down for construction deposit - here is our problem, as NO work was ever done. The scope of work outlines many things - none of them being additional design work. This is the paperwork that I am relying on.

We redlined the contract in January, and NEVER got it back, and we have an incomplete set of drawings that we never signed or initialed - we are supposed to return the drawings (we have offered, especially in exchange for our complete set). No response. The contract mainly deals with all the specific terms and mandatory arbitration (we escaped that bullet), but refers to the scope of work for building specifics.

Our drawings are somewhat historical and they are construction plans (20-30+ pages each), and detail the history of the remodeling back 30+ years - they would be difficult to redo, and would be quite useful for any future work. I wonder if they know that these are valuable enough (by re-creation costs) to count as felony theft (>$1000 where we live)? I REALLY don't want to go that route. But I must have asked them 10+ times orally and in writing for the plans back.

At first (until yesterday), I believed that they were entitled to keep SOME of the 10% deposit because I was sure they had done SOME prep-work, and I asked for a detailing so that I could be fair. The refused (as they have done since Day 1) to provide ANY accounting/detail/information. Now, I believe not. We paid for the designs, they did the designs, they did nothing else, as we have nothing in hand legally.

I am going to make them one last offer, and then go to our Home Improvement Commission for an impartial ruling. This might cost us $50-$100 at most to set up (I haven't seen ANY filing fees listed, so it might be $0). This would likely be the best route, and something that wouldn't be a major hassle compared to even small claims court.

I will say that if we go that route (i.e., they don't accept my counter-offer), no confidentiality agreement will be signed, and I will happily detail (calmly and truthfully), the entire sordid details with names and everything. Fortunately, I have my in-house attorney to keep from writing anything libelous.

I do want to say that I am quite glad that I found this website. I have been looking around, and getting ideas, and it's a great site. And there has certainly been some good suggestions made in this forum thread, and it has been therapeutic to vent a little. I am working very hard to keep emotion out of this, and just keep it clean and simple. Thanks to all who have even read this.

Oh, and believe it or not, this WAS a brief outline of the situation. I am currently doing the remodeling, with a projected end date for this phase of 1st week in July. We have been living completely off 1 entire floor of our house since February, and this is very stressful when nothing was happening.

This is an interesting discussion with two sides. If you had the firm create a space for you and then unused their ideas you probably owe more than you paid. Creating a interesting space original space is much harder than building it. The other side is if you rejected their ideas and created your own space you owe them nothing. I will say this is the reason our samples are coded and clients can not keep our samples more than 48 hours.

As a creative person myself - MS Colours - that sounds quite reasonable. However, we did have a GREAT deal of input into the design. One example though was when they originally had a bathroom added on the opposite side of the house - this sacrificed closet space (which we need) for a large bathroom (which is nice, but not as nice as a well-laid out smaller one).

The problem came when I pointed out:
1) There was NO existing plumbing or stack on that side of the house
2) There was no place on the first floor to cheat the plumbing and stack without going into the outside (historic lathe and plaster) wall. (Cheat in the theatrical sense, applied to building - running utilities in such a way that they are unseen, not sure if this is a widely used term).
2) There was no guarantee (in a house that is 125 years old) that structural work would not be required to put a bathroom where they suggested.

The second problem was when we convinced them to move the bathroom back to where there was an existing bathroom, and they first told us that it would be a wash with regards to price (which surprised me based on the amount of work it should have taken to add plumbing where there was none, and none close), and then the bid came in $20k more!

They had walls removed without noting structural or not, and told us that would be determined at the time (60% change overhead probably prompted that), etc...

We aren't using ANY of their ideas other than moving the Master from the attic space down to the 2nd floor.