Charlotte homeowners paid contractors thousands for shoddy work, state attorney general’s lawsuit claims
Charlotte contractors who allegedly left homes either in shambles or largely untouched — after first securing thousands in payments — will have to answer not only to the homeowners, but also to North Carolina’s attorney general.
Josh Stein announced Monday that his office is suing Canary General Contracting and Design for “deceiving Charlotte homeowners.”
The Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Division had already filed 15 complaints against the company. Stein suspects N.C. customers have already lost more than $250,000 to the contractors.
Canary’s operator, Steven Sand, and owner Khuneary Kim are running an unlicensed general contracting business, Stein alleges in the complaint, filed in Wake County’s Superior Court of the General Court of Justice.
Canary didn’t start projects on time, collected money for work it never completed, left behind “substandard” and “unsafe” work and often failed to secure building permits on behalf of the homeowners, Stein said in a news release Monday. “...In most instances, homeowners had to give up on the project entirely or hire a new contractor to tear down Canary’s poor work and redo the project,” he wrote.
In November, Stein filed a complaint against Flowers Flooring in Cornelius. In it, he accused the company of taking $400,000 from customers for never-completed installations. More than 80 customers have submitted complaints to the North Carolina Department of Justice, citing Flowers’ “allegedly unlawful practices.”
“People invest a lot of time and money in their home, and I’ll hold accountable companies that deceive them,” Stein said Monday.
During the same Raleigh news conference, Stein announced that he is investigating RealPage, a software company that “generate[s] a rent to charge prospective tenants” relative to the area and collected data.
The company may be violating antitrust laws when it makes its models, Stein says.
“Housing is already too expensive for so many North Carolinians,” he said. “Companies cannot collude to illegally raise rents on tenants.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2024 at 12:00 AM.
