California Coast Contracting

Working with California Coast Contracting has been an unmitigated disaster and we have retained attorneys to take legal proceedings against this company, all owners, and the license holders. We have also submitted a complaint to the Contractors State Licensing Board, plus submitted a claim against the company's bond (and was told we're not the only ones doing so).

Having purchased a new house on a bare dirt lot, we selected California Coast Contracting (CCC) to do our landscaping. We worked with Chris Cox on the overall design and once we received city permits and HOA approval of our plans, CCC started work. Some work was done by their in-house crew, some by subcontractors brought in by CCC.

Although things seemed to go well at first, mistakes started to be made by their in-house crew. There seemed to be a general lack of supervision, so a number of tasks would need to be redone. Then work done by the in-house crew failed a city inspection and work stopped for a couple of months. Eventually, the other owner (Tom Sanford) personally took over. He had his crew re-do a small amount of the work, just for it to fail city inspection a second time. CCC's crew then collected their tools and totally abandoned our project. After twelve months our back yard looks like a war zone, with a partially built pool, unusable outdoor kitchen, building materials and trash where a lawn should have been.

Then we had worse news. Although we had been paying CCC's progress invoices on time and in full, several of their suppliers and sub-contractors contacted us to say they had not been paid by CCC and were now coming after us for payment. One even put a mechanics lien on our house. Between what the sub-contractors and suppliers are owed, plus what we'll need to pay another contractor to re-do CCC's inspection-failing work, we've lost over $125,000. This is money that we had already paid to CCC, but now we have to pay it a second time (thus the lawsuit and other legal actions we're having to take).