Carlos General Contractor and Plumbing Services

My partner and I hired and signed contract with Carlos General Contractor & State Plumbing LLC on 12/12/2017 for $34,000 to complete the work that the Montgomery County had already approved with the proper drawing from a licensed architect and to obtain my Use and Occupancy permit from the county . At the time of the signing , Carlos had verbally promised us that it's an easy project , that It will be finished by the end of the January and Mid February for sure. After signing the contract with Carlos General Contractor & State Plumbing LLC, there was absolutely nothing done in the shop for the first month from the moment we sign the contract to 01/12/2018( which is the date when Carlos submitted the application to start the plumbing work after an entire month of not doing anything ). the plumbing work was approved for close-in on 02/02/2018 and absolute nothing was done after the WSSC(plumbing) close-in was approved. During that time my partner and I would go in the shop to check the progress, everything still looked the same day by day. I called Carlos to figure out why we couldn’t do other things( electrical, mechanical and fire Marshall) while waiting on the plumbing permit, was told by Carlos that county doesn’t allow him to work on anything else while waiting for the plumbing final inspection approval. So we patiently waited again until about mid march, and I called Carlos again to find out why it’s taking forever to finish a simple project like this, and I was told by Carlos that everything’s almost done and we would get our use and occupancy permit by the end of March. The end of march came , and we still didn’t get our Use and occupancy permit. After a few month going back and forth with Carlos, we finally got our use and occupancy permit on 06/26/2018. I went to the Montgomery county planning office myself and found out that the whole time Carlos had been lying to us, he could’ve submitted the electrical, mechanical , fire Marshall permit application immediately after we sign the contract but he didn’t do it at all, which wouldn’t waste all these months waiting and being fed by Carlos lies. The electrical permit application was sent in the county on 03/15/2018 , the mechanical permit application was send in on 05/24/2018, both of the permits are same day approval. when we confronted Carlos why he didn’t send in the application in December of 2017, he simply told us that he was on a family vacation in Florida( which we have voice recording evidence of Carlos admitting his lack attendance during these months. Therefore , we asked Carlos to compensate our finical damage during these months( we pay $2600 for the rent per month and other bills) which if he started the process early , we would’ve gotten our use and occupancy permit at least 4 months earlier than 06/26/2018. All these months past and we have lost countless business opportunities, we just want some justice. We had dug out our savings just to pay for the rent without utilizing our space while waiting on Carlos’s lies for a long time. During these month, Carlos would go convince my architect to revise the drawings to the county so he could potentially make more profits which wastes even more time on our end. also, according to Carlos, there were additions on top of our original contract, when we asked him to show us the receipt of all the material he bought, he simply told us that he doesn’t have them(also have voice recording evidence), also there are a lot of unfinished work left in the shop. in the end, Carlos had costed us badly finically and emotionally. This is the worst experience ever, spending our life savings and being fed with lies for 7 entire month. I would rate his business ZERO STAR , I DO NOT RECOMMEND Carlos General Contractor & State Plumbing LLC to nobody!!!!!!!!!