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  Rattigan & Sons Inc.

  25 Swamp Rd Whately, MA 01093-9500

  
• 

  Rattigan & Sons Inc.

  PO Box 295 Whately, MA 01093-0295

  

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/04/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  Dear Sean,

  There are many inaccuracies with your statement; let's focus on the stairs. I had already removed the carpeting and padding from the stairs when Jody, your mother, and Austin* visited in October of 2023. The stairs did not sag in the middle; when Jody and Austin said they were not to code, I believed they were referring to slightly different riser heights. Again, as the licensed contractor, we trusted your appraisal of the situation and signed a change order to re-do the stairs and paid more. Once Austin opened the stairs up, he thought there was more work than he initially thought, and so we signed another change order/contact with Rattigan and paid even more money. Every contract that we signed with Rattigan & Sons states that all work will be done to Massachusetts Building Code. This is why we hired a licensed contractor. The tile transitions were added on at this time, before any work had been done. Based on the work we saw at the end (floors, stairs & tile) we would in no way ever hire Rattigan & Son to do anything else.

   

  Immediately after arriving in the condo in December of 2023, we called out that due to the varying riser heights, the stairs were not built to code, as per the contract. We were given the run-around and told that they were to code and that they were "grandfathered". We had to call the building inspector to come out to get Rattigan to believe us that the stairs were not to code; when he was here he found multiple violations: uneven riser heights, a too-small landing and the stair treads and risers did not meet the skirtboard; the large gaps meant the stairs were not completed in a "workman-like manner" as required by the MA building code. He also pointed out that you should have pulled a permit to work on the stairs, which you did not.

   

  Sean and Austin came back to our condo and met with the building inspector on the first of April to have the building code explained to them. It then took from April 1st until the end of August for Rattigan to come up with a plan to fix the stairs and begin the re-build, leaving us with unsafe stairs this whole time. They rushed through the job & lied to the inspector that all the stair rises were even when he came to do a rough inspection. The inspector asked them to make a change to the winder, which they still didn't get right. Austin was hurrying to finish on a Friday evening, working until 6 or so. All of the treads and risers were in place, and he was starting to caulk the risers and mud the skirt-board. Basically, the stairs were finished except for some trim & paint. Austin left without checking in or saying goodbye.

   

  I immediately checked the stairs, and noting that the risers were different heights, immediately texted Sean. He first claimed that the difference in riser heights were as agreed upon with the inspector. We called the inspector back out, and he said that the stairs were in no way up to code, with the winder still off from his instructions and the uneven stair rises. We relayed this to Sean, who then said that he was "stuck with what was there" and "there was no way to get even rises".

   

  At this point, after telling us it was impossible, Sean told us that all he would have to do is "adjust the top riser height"; there is no way to adjust just the top riser height without completely taking apart and rebuilding the staircase. Because we could not get a straight answer out of Sean and were told so many different lies, we lost faith that he was telling the truth and/or knew what he was doing. The inspector told us he in know way told Sean that having uneven riser heights was acceptable - how could it be - yet Sean continues to claim this. Sean also claims we did not notify him about problems on the stairs until recently; we have emails and texts that say otherwise - the stairs were brought to Rattigan's attention in December 2023.

   

  All in all, I believe Sean R to be either dishonest or not very bright or perhaps both. I think with the delay in work (we had to constantly nudge them between April and August to get the work done), Sean is trying to wait out the one year warranty that MA gives on home repairs, not realizing that I have an email from Sean stating that all work under a Rattigan contract has a 3 year warranty.

   

  I am not satisfied with Seans answer; we have not heard from any legal representation on Sean's behalf. I demand a refund for the job(s) that was not done to code, as per the contract(s).

   

  Sincerely,

  *** *******

   

  us for the work that needs to be done to correct his slop. His last email to us said his lawyer would be in touch, but when we reached out after not hearing, he did not answer our email regarding who his lawyer was so we could negotiate a settlement with his representative.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 11/04/2024

  Hello ***,

  We first want to apologize on the behalf of Rattigan and Sons Inc. our Family owned 5-star company for your experience and feelings towards our company. In the beginning before this project had started and right after the deposits were submitted, we felt threatened and under attack and we offered to give your deposit back in-full because from our experience we had a very bad feeling about this project for a lot of red flags were going up for us. We then got phone calls from your partner ***** who had told us that he was very sorry on your behalf, and he would be stepping into the project from this point forward and we would no longer have any dealings with you. (***). We still felt strongly we should refund the deposits in full and walk away from this project, but we felt very bad at this point and as a 5-star company wanted to be of service. From the beginning all parties have been in agreement that Rattigan and Sons Inc. was the main point of contact but however due to our busy schedules and the project distance we were going to be sub-contracting this project to ********** ***********. Everybody was aware of this and okay with Rattigan and Sons Inc. passing the lead to Austin from ********** *********** to lead and perform all original contracted work and opened direct communications between our sub-contractor and your partner (*****). The original agreed project was to remove all baseboards and transitions, prep floor, and install bamboo floating flooring. From the beginning we strongly suggested against this specific flooring product due to New England climates and expansion and contraction. We also knew that the customer's would not be moving in for a few months leaving the interior climates very humid and with no air circulation and stated this may be a problem before there ever was any problems and everyone was happy and seemed not to be worried at all. The project was completed Rattigan and Sons, Inc. Project manager went to property and inspected and customers were fully satisfied after pictures were sent everyone was happy, we were paid in-full, and sub-contractor ********** *********** was paid in full. There was a separate set of plans for the interior existing stairs. The customer had asked ********** *********** directly about their existing interior stairs being replaced from carpet to red oak treads with 3/4" trim boards for risers. ********** differed them to us as we were their main point of contact, and we all agreed on a stair price to replace the carpet with red oak stair treads and 3/4" FJP trim boards for risers. When ********** *********** removed the existing carpet stairs, he noticed that the stairs were in really bad shape and sagging in the middle. Without seeing the stair bones and framing he suggested that there may be a structural problem with one of the stringers below the stairs. The customers gave us approval to inspect, and ********** *********** removed the existing tread and riser subfloor boards to inspect behind and noticed no structural damages and that there were in-fact 3 stringers in place. He then reinforced all the stringers just adding new screws and framing nails and then closed everything back up. "No structural changes" ********** *********** then finished the stairs as agreed and as contracted and sent the pictures because the homeowners were still living out of state, and they loved their brand-new cosmetic stair upgrades. Because the customers were so happy with their new bamboo floors and new upgraded interior stairs, they called us for 1 more project!! They wanted tile floors in the entryways and had gone to the property to show us where they wanted the tiles they purchased and how they wanted them placed. They also labeled the tiles in number form for us. Rattigan and Sons explained that we would do this project in-house because we specialize in tile, and they were excited to get going on their new tile entryway designs coming through the front and front garage doors and then also coming through the back slider would be new tile transitioning into the already finished bamboo flooring. The customer's emphasized how they really wanted the tile to float flush into the bamboo floating flooring with NO transitions so we told them we would try our best but typically this calls for a transition threshold because the bamboo is floating and will probably cause the grout around that transition to crack. Rattigan being a 5-star company gave these customer's the benefit of the doubt and still tried doing this customer requested design without transitions against our professional judgement we did what the customer insisted on knowing we would most likely need to come back to do transitions adding another trip down because from experience we knew that the odds of the grout not cracking were very slim. Sure, enough before we even left the property after we finished the tile, we messaged 1 of the homeowner's the finished pictures and he said he was very happy and thank you for the new tile. We then said that we would need to do transitions because we could already tell that the grout was not going to hold up. We gave the customer a quote for the transition thresholds in a low-profile oak and they accepted and wanted us to install the transitions because we all agreed that this would not work as we originally said from the beginning, and they agreed that they were going to listen to our suggestions moving forward and that they wanted us to do the thresholds now for them. They never gave us the opportunity to complete this project and install the transition thresholds and that is why the pictures below show the cracked grout lines around the perimeter. They also did not allow us to do transitions and thresholds with the bamboo even when we suggested about breaking up the span and showed the manufacturer's instructions and their suggestions they wanted us to float the bamboo flooring.  Almost 1-year later we started getting emails from these customer's saying that their stairs were not up to code and that they were not happy with their stairs. We were shocked!! If this was the case, then why did it take so long to get into contact especially after seeing all the completed work while we were still working there!! This to us seemed like motive and a personal problem from back in the beginning when one of the customers got sidelined. We have not confirmed this but just a conclusion. We also offered to repair the bamboo flooring for free while we were there doing their stair repairs and they said no we want to do one project at a time and we could have very easily and quickly pulled up the 6 rows to where the floor buckled and repaired this for them, but they wanted and felt it was more of a manufacturer defect which we did agree with and that was the end of the floor repair discussion. We knew that they were wrong about the stairs and that their stairs were out of code from the beginning as the inspector confirmed during our walk through. We wanted to just make these customers happy because we saw this complaint coming and were being threatened so we went and ripped their stairs completely apart because the previous homeowner before our customers removed the winders making their stairs out of code and the inspector said they should have the winders put back in to bring the stairs back to code. The only topic was about the winders being the reason they were out of code. We did not have to fix this because it was existing before we ever touched these stairs and all we did was replace the stair treads and risers a cosmetic upgrade, but we decided in hope of good faith we would do them a huge favor and they would be grateful and finally satisfied that we could leave things on a positive note and all parties fully satisfied and no more threats. We did not charge them any additional funds when this was well over a 5k stair repair and replacement, and we covered the permit fee costs and spent our time and fuel going back and forth over an hour drive 1 way. We called for the rough inspection and the inspector gave us our instructions to just pad the new winder we had framed out a bit and we did that while he was there, and he passed our rough framing inspection for the stairs. *** the homeowner was present during the inspection and listened in and watched the entire inspection. I then headed out and our sub-contractor closed the stairs up. We were scheduled to come back in a few days, and they reached out to us showing concerns and said we were not welcome back until they felt this was resolved. They had the inspector go there for a second time and we spoke to him on the phone and there were just a few minor adjustments he wanted us to make which we were kind of frustrated about because he had passed us and inspected and then it seemed that what he had said in his original inspection "that he was not worried about the riser heights so much because everything was already existing he was worried about the winder and told us what to do on the winder and we did it and he passed us to move forward to the finish." So now we had to make 2 adjustments, but we still shared with the homeowners that it was no big deal, and we would still be by at the scheduled time that we already agreed with them to finish to make the adjustments and still finish their interior stair project. They denied us access and told us that we could not finish the work that we all agreed and signed contracts to perform. They now breached a signed contract by denying us access to complete a project we started and did not ever have the opportunity to finish hence there never being a final inspection. So now they will not allow us back to finish and then the next email we receive is them asking us for all the money back for the entire stair repair upgrade project. We asked them to please let us finish seeing we were now double invested and had just performed all this labor for free to help them and show our companies dedication to service and also covered all their needed materials for these changes and then also covered their permit fees we would think they would at least have the gratitude to allow us to finish the stairs for them seeing they were very please while we were there and then every day after we left they would have all kinds of concerns. This all just did not seem normal or fair to us throughout this project. Finally after they made it clear they were not going to allow us back to finish and in addition were demanding 100% refund for the stair project with an additional large amount over 2k for their troubles, and given everything we had done completing the stairs once and then attempting to complete and upgrade the stairs to benefit them, we offered them 40% of their deposit back seeing we were now almost 90% complete with their stairs a second time and were being denied a chance to finish. This to us was very unfair so we felt we had no choice at this point but to pass this over to our legal counsel. Our legal counsel is currently drafting up an offer and we were told to no longer have direct contact and this is why we did not reply to their email asking us for our attorney information. 

  Thank You,

  Rattigan and Sons Inc.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 12/02/2024

  Hello ***,

   

  As we have already stated and discussed we deeply apologize for your feelings toward our company even after we stepped in to rectify all work that was performed by a sub-contracted company. We do not want to go back and forth anymore at this point. We all have invested a lot of energy in this matter. We made an offer we felt was more than fair as we were instructed by our legal team after doing everything, we could, to rectify the work contracted and completed by sub-contracted second party, for you and then you denied us a chance to completely finish and would not allow us back mid project. At this point we have been instructed by our legal team to have no more contact with you guys, and they will be reaching out as we already stated. Lastly, as a 5-star company that prides ourselves on customer service we really do apologize that we were not able to completely satisfy your home improvement wants! We truly wish you guys the best and our team will be in contact from this point forward. 

   

  Thank You,

  Sean Rattigan

  Customer Answer

  Date: 12/09/2024

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  Against our better judgement, we gave Sean, owner of Rattigan & Sons, a second chance to build a set of stairs because Sean insisted that there was no way he could get it wrong a second time, with Sean personally supervising every second of work.

  Sean insisted that the first set of stairs he built were to code, even though we pointed out several ways in which they were unsafe and did not meet code. We had to call the building inspector to inspect Sean's work, and the BI agreed with our assessment that random, varying riser heights are not to code, and pointed out several additional ways that the stairs were not built to code. It took Rattigan & Sons from April, when Sean met with the inspector, until August to come up with a plan to rebuild them to code. The inspector came for a preliminary inspection while Sean was re-building and this is when Sean lied and told the BI all the stair rises were even; the BI instructed Sean to make some changes to the angle of the winder, and explained again what the code required and why. When the Rattigan worker left, we called out that the stair rises were uneven, again. This is where Sean started lying, or gaslighting, and told us that the inspector wasn't worried about the differences in riser heights (wrong), and that it would be impossible to re-build our stairs with even riser heights (also wrong), and that the second set of stairs are to code (wrong, and am I hearing an echo?).

  
  We were forced to call the inspector, again, to have him tell Sean that the second set of stairs Rattigan & Sons built were not to code, again. Sean then said that all he needed to do was "fix the top riser height"; fixing the top riser requires completely taking apart and rebuilding the stairs, again. After having been gaslit and or lied to and told we were asking the impossible (even riser heights), it REALLY sounded like Sean did not understand what it would take to fix the stairs nor the skills to make it happen. We asked for our money back, Sean made us an offer for less than half of what we paid for the stairs. We are asking again for contact information for your legal representation so that we may negotiate with them.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/25/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  The company came out in 2023 believe to give the free estimate for tub/shower conversion to a stand up shower. The estimate was like $18360 which we agreed upon. The 1st payment was given shortly after for them to start the work. Work was started last week of July 2023 I believe and was completed mid August 2023. Half way thru the job I was able to see what had been done so far because prior to the half way point the bathroom door was boarded up and screwed shut. When I walked into the bathroom I was shocked to see that a tub/shower combo had been installed instead of just a shower that I wanted and was quoted for. When I told the workers about the problem they were unsure of what I was talking about until looking back at the work order which at that point they apologized and said they mixed up work orders. They continued to finish the job as it was instead of correcting it. When job was finally done we inspected it only to find that the shower head not only leaked but sprayed water over the curtain onto the floor, the handle only turned a short distance making hard to adjust temperature, tub was damaged in numerous spots a well as had rust stains all over, some tiles are sticking out a lot further than others as well as grout is very uneven in places, vanity had damage along edges, and sink faucet was never tightened down. I contacted company about shower head which they stated they knew yet never told us but someone would be out to replace it soon. I also asked about the tub looking like it was used and they claimed it was new and they would contact manufacturer about damage and get back to me. We waited to here something and after 2 weeks we contacted them at which they said the manufacturer would either pay for it to be repaired or they'd refund 1/2 the cost ($160). Me and my sister have contacted the company numerous times about the remaining problems by text and email and have been completely ignored for weeks now. We also sent pics and videos of issues.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 09/27/2023

  We first want to apologize for your unfortunate experience, and we appreciate all of your business. We do accept full responsibility for the tub being installed rather than the shower by our sub-contracted plumber. Once we received the first phone call from ****** and ***** ***** about their concerns and confusion on the tub being installed rather than a shower. We immediately went by to the jobsite by that Friday to try and rectify this situation. We worked on removing the tub and prepped everything during the morning time. I Sean R******* the owner of the company personally on site the whole time helping our foreman and our Plumber prep everything for removal. While we were working ******* ***** the owner of the home and the original contract signer of this project came home. We sat down and discussed with both *** and her daughter **** and our Plumber Paul the different options we could offer them and that we 100 percent plan on fully compensating them.
  1: Complete demolition of the tub base and removal, change of the plumbing and installation of new shower pan/base, then re-installation of concrete board for future tile shower walls. 
  2: Keep the new tub base that was in fact double the cost of the shower pan/base free of charge and we would purchase all of their shower wall tiles and grout materials which were stated in the original contact not included in pricing and will be customer's responsibility for preference and purchase. 
  Both *** and **** thought this was very generous of us and even offered to pay for the additional balance on the tub after agreeing to keep the tub base installed and thanking us for being a honest company and accepting our mistake and not trying to push the blame on them as consumers. *** seemed to be so happy and grateful she ordered us dinner that same evening while we continued to work. We all sat down very happy and ate dinner together. 
  The day before we finished we wanted to go above and beyond for our customer's ******* *****, ****** *****, ***** *****, and **** *****, so we went to **** ***** and purchased them a brand new shower curtain rod, clear shower curtain, shower entry Grab bar, toilet paper holder chrome, towel bar holder chrome, and a shower wall soap holder free of charge on our company to show our appreciation for their business and being so easy to work with when in fact we did mix up the tub base for a shower base which we could have easily fixed and were prepped to fix before we all sat down and they agreed to keep the tub base and were happy and okay with this instead. All of these items totaled around $450.00, and the shower wall tiles and grout totaling around $700.00. We strongly feel this was more than generous and we had no problem taking from our own profits to keep our customers happy and satisfied. 
  Later in the next couple weeks we purchased their tile for their shower walls after showing them pictures of different tile options and *** and ****** showing us which tile, they wanted. We then installed all the shower wall tiles and grouted the shower wall tiles. After showing ******* ****** ****** *****, and ***** ***** the finished project they all thanked us and were very happy about the project. They then submitted us a check of the final payment and we left. 
  The next day after we finished the project and *** ***** paid us in full, we received a call and text message from ****** and ***** ***** explaining that there was water dripping down the shower head like it may be loose and the tub spout not functioning properly between shower and bath. We immediately sent our plumber who found while inspecting these items that in fact there was a faulty part on the mixing valve due to the manufacturer. He got a new plumbing fixture swapped out by the plumbing manufacturer and replaced the part. He also replaced the shower head and tub spout free of charge with new parts and paid out of pocket to keep our customers happy and satisfied given the prior events. Our sub-contracted plumber then showed the customer's the shower and tub and did multiple test runs in front of them and they were all very pleased and satisfied. 
  Later that week we received pictures of two separate areas on the tub entry base that seemed to have indent damages. We did not remember these damages and our sub-contracted plumber did in fact open the brand-new tub right out of the box and installed in the house. We showed these pictures to our plumber and he has already submitted them to the ***** ********** ******** *** manufacturer department and they have offered to send a field specialist to come on site to repair the damages and also reimburse for 1/2 the money of the tub in the amount of $179.05 which we have already told ***** and ****** ***** we will mail or drop them off a check in this amount once we receive the reimbursement from our plumber. After conversations with ****** and ***** ***** along with ******* ***** about this complaint because we all at Rattigan and Sons Inc. were very confused and caught off guard when we read this complaint found out that in fact ******, *****, and *** ***** had no knowledge of this complaint and figured it must have come from their other sister. They apologized for the complaint on their family's behalf, and we scheduled to be meeting them on site this week to have a sit down. We are on good terms still and hope to see this complaint put behind us and removed. Thank you for your business and we appreciate the experience to work with your family on giving you guys a brand-new complete bathroom renovation.
  We will always respect our customer's wishes and respect any concerns. We are happy to continue to serve all our customers everyday!
  Thank You,
  Sean R*******
  Rattigan and Sons Inc.
  The Home Improvement Specialists.