Former clients of contractor claim they are out $150k due to incomplete renos

A group of former clients of a local general contractor are raising major concerns, alleging they are out approximately $150,000.

“What we encountered from August to September was the same old story. ‘Oh I’ll be over tomorrow,’ then we would get home, and nothing would be done,” explained Dawn Milne, a former client of Jerett Biggs.

This last summer, hired Biggs to renovate her kitchen. His ad on Kijiji – boasting 25-plus years of experience. While the demolition portion of the renovation went smoothly, when weeks passed without much progress, she began to ask questions. It was then that she noticed the tone of the previously quoted “charming” contractor changed.

“So he kinda becomes this abuser in his texts. ‘What do you mean you need receipts before, I’m going to have to dig them up and I’ll email them to you.’ Three months have gone by and I still haven’t seen receipts,” said Milne.

Milne then started to do some digging herself and quickly realized her frustration was far from unique.

In fact, there’s a support group on Facebook pf those people who have paid Biggs money for renovations, like Jaimie Quirante.

“He did the demo, that was great things were moving along, and then he stopped showing up less frequently and less every week.  Like months on end waiting and then he stopped contacting us,” explained Quirante.

Quirante hired Biggs for a kitchen reno in 2019 and eventually went to the police. Only to be told it wasn’t more than a civil matter.

“They just told us, because he did a little bit of work, whether it’s just the demolition it’s not technically a scam. I think I won the case but still, there was no money handed to me. My family and I are down like $11,000 just from getting our walls torn apart pretty much,” said Quirante.

Katie Clark, another one of Biggs’ former clients, claims to be out thousands of dollars from him as well and it has her questioning how the authorities have not gotten involved, given the contractor’s long history in civil court.

“They are all dead ends it seems and there is no way to stop him,” said Clark. “The first thing the OPP said to me was, if this is a once to twice thing that’s different, but if this is a pattern this is definitely something we should be looking into. So what’s with the WPS.”