The Custom Cabin of Lies

In August 2008, Phoenix Buildings Solutions accepted and signed an order to produce a custom designed cabin to be built in Ohio. The order was processed, the contract was signed between the client and Phoenix, and the deposit was accepted. Engineering completed plan schematics and received approval from the State of Ohio Building Department in early September. The original plan was to start production in late September, but production did not start until mid-November. Why? Tom Hennings, President and CEO, simply did not want to produce the product and had no intentions of producing the product. This was simply a scheme by Phoenix Building Solutions to inject capital into the company. At the contract signing, a customer is required to make deposit of at least 10%. By signing contracts with clients, the company is making quick cash.

During the next two months, the client was lied to repeatedly by Phoenix Building Solutions about the status of the model plans. The client was told that the plans were still at the State of Ohio, and had not had been approval yet. The story then changed after client found the plans were approved. The new story became “engineering needed more time to produce production drawings”. This went on for two months, while Tom Hennings and the Owner, Edward Fanning and Nick Jevic, tried to decide if they wanted to build this product. Production finally began on the Custom Cabin home around the first of December 2008, and the home was completed and delivered on December 15^th 2008 near the site location.

Now if the case of the cabin had not been ugly enough, by December 15, 2008, the weather had turned ugly and rain, snow, and ice were a constant reminder that homes are not usually delivered in the winter. The set crews spent a week trying to lowboys carrying the modular units up to top of hill in the snow, ice, rain and mud to the site. The crane crew then spent another day trying to get a crane to the top of the hill. Because of the cold, wet, muddy conditions, the actual placement of modular units on the foundation were delayed a week after December 15, 2008.

Phoenix Building Solutions, Tom Hennings, Ed Fanning and Nick Jevic opted to charge the builder for every day that set crew was unable to ascend the hill with lowboys to the site. Phoenix’s claim was that house was to be delivered on the 15^th per the contract and every day late incurred a late charge to builder. Now if the home would have been constructed and delivered in October when and around the contract between the builder and Phoenix was signed, these weather conditions would not have been a problem. Another interesting note concerning this case is that in a Phoenix contract nowhere does it state an actual delivery date, but the contract references the “delivery date” throughout the contract.  The client refused the invoice over the delayed delivery due to faults committed by Phoenix. By refusing to pay the invoice, Phoenix Building Solutions have withheld the heat pump that failed to ship with home. The heat pump was being held hostage in their now closed and locked production plant.