Alotta Design

This is a scam on seniors. In mid-January, 2020, my wife and I contacted Alex Lott of Alotta Design, as advertised on Houzz, to design a Master Bath and Laundry addition for our home in Athens, Alabama. The design would also include a small closet on the second story. Prior to Mr. Lott’s visit, and at the advice of Luke Langford of Langford Construction, we contacted Erin Tidwell with the Athens city planning department to determine the offset regulations for our home and received the pertinent information via email. On January 25, 2020, Mr. Lott came to our home to discuss the addition. At that time, he showed us plans that he said he was currently working on and confirmed his credentials as a designer. He said that he had a design degree from Drake State, an engineering degree from Alabama A&M, and was currently a designer for Woodland Homes. He also said that he was knowledgeable of all Athens ordinances concerning offset regulations. The business card he gave us showed him as a realtor with Coldwell Banker of the Valley. We took Mr. Lott upstairs and showed him exactly what we needed and where the addition would be added. We went into the back yard, showed him what we had in mind for the design, and told him about the information we had received from the city planning department. At that time, we also discussed potential issues with the roof in adding an upstairs above the bath and laundry and the fact that the design should extend to the west. Before leaving, Mr. Lott said he was taking a measurement with a laser (although in retrospect, I did not see a laser). If there was one, he only took one measurement. We also paid Mr. Lott a $400 down payment. Mr. Lott cashed the check on January 27, 2020. Over the next six weeks, we sent Mr. Lott several emails concerning the design and he replied saying that he had multiple deadlines to meet and would soon start working on the design. On March 8, Mr. Lott sent an email in which he attached what he said he had designed for our home. It seemed to be a very dated stock bathroom room design that was copied and pasted on to two lines that were to represent existing walls. The first thing that was obvious was that the plan extended to the south and into the offset by more that eight feet, almost to the right-of-way for the street. Secondly, there was no laundry shown in the plan. I had explained the importance of the laundry to Mr. Lott due the fact that as seniors, it was becoming more difficult to go into the basement to do the laundry. Without having any expertise in architecture, it was also easy to tell that it would be very difficult to connect the roof of the addition to the existing structure. I sent Mr. Lott an email to his gmail account and told him I was disappointed with the design but never received a reply. The email that came from Alotta Design was flagged with a bright yellow caution warning advising not to reply due to phishing. It has now been two months since we gave Mr. Lott a down payment of $400 to design an addition for our home. He has not submitted a legitimate design to date nor attempted to contact us in any way.

Alex does a great job on all plans he works on. He Pays close attention to detail.I will definitely work with him again in the future.