In late nov 2015, my wife and i met with jeff polk of polk design + build group llc for an initial consult to design and build a custom home in southlake. He quickly caught our attention by quoting a significantly low construction cost Including his builder's fee) as a rough estimate for our ideal size home--one far lower than any other builder we spoke to.
In jan 2016, we visited a couple of his completed homes to confirm the build quality, and jeff warmly assured us that his designing abilities were equal to any architect's and that he could do any style we wished. With confidence, we contracted him to design our dream home in feb 2016--one that would be a challenge to do well on our narrow lot--and swiftly paid the nonrefundable 40% deposit to get started.
We soon found out in our first design meeting that jeff had oversold his abilities. He could not draw or sketch any concepts in-person; he was only able to design prelims in cad. This slowed down our design process since jeff was unable to accurately visualize different layout options in our meetings, and instead we would wait for a cad layout to arrive by email 1-3 weeks later.
Jeff never asked one question about our building budget. Over 9 months Feb to oct 2016), no prelim pricing was ever discussed/tracked by jeff. On feb 2, before our first design meeting, we requested by email a rough ballpark estimate A realistic low-to-high price range) on the expected building cost of our ideal house, sending him a list of overall design details. Jeff said that he wanted to design our dream house and not limit ourselves...That it would be easy to create first and remove extra things later. He then led us straight into design, without further conversation on numbers for anticipated construction costs on our project...
Only when we asked a second time on oct 31 Finalizing the 2-story prelims and looking ahead to start the bid-ready stage) did jeff email us our first and only "rough estimate" prelim budget on nov 21--almost a month after the request. We were baffled to see the unexpectedly large discrepancy between his initial rough estimate in nov 2015 vs. His current rough estimate in nov 2016. Our original planned sq ft Based on his nov 2015 quote) had gradually been replaced over the design process by jeff's penchant for designing larger rectangular rooms and hallways Contrasting his claims to promote space-saving design)--leading to an increase of 800 sq ft of living space more than planned and resulting in a prelim budget that exceeded our original one by over $200,000.
As we realized that jeff's priority was not to create a budget-friendly home and that he had never shown any interest in monitoring costs, we asked jeff to stop work on our project immediately--especially since we discovered online that another customer had experienced the same over-budget/poor communication runaround with jeff in 2014
With regret, my wife gently notified jeff on dec 13 that we were officially ending our design agreement. Jeff attempted to defend himself, saying that we never gave him a chance to freely design on his own and that he could design a much better house right then and there if we continued with him...But we knew that the lack of budget tracking could cause greater expense and stress in the construction phase and simply confirmed that we wished to end things with a clean break. Jeff agreed that he could have done better with prelim pricing but wished us well...
...Then 9 days later, on dec 22, we received an invoice for $5,734.96 for additional billing of design work jeff said he had done. It was a shock to us, because we had already paid the nonrefundable $4,800 deposit--without expectation of getting any design credit back. Therefore, jeff expected us to pay $10,534.96 for unfinished designs.
In all of our meetings, jeff never showed us exterior elevations nor electrical plans--features that were clearly listed in the second design phase. So, it was completely unexpected to see jeff charge us for "70% of work completed." still in shock, we protested to jeff immediately for being charged for work that we had never seen. He said that we had passed the conceptual phase a long time ago, much to our surprise. Here again was total lack of communication--this time on design stage perception. We had always emailed about our "prelim plans" as late as oct 31, and jeff never clarified that, in his eyes, it had passed the prelim phase long ago, and that he was planning to charge us a significantly large amount more...
Jeff emailed us a second revised invoice at the end of our evening talk on dec 22, saying he was being gracious in decreasing the bill to $4,734.96 Which would mean a revised invoice of $9,534.96 for the unfinished designs). However, we felt that our complete, naive trust in jeff's "honesty and integrity" had been badly shattered and crushed...
...Especially after we discovered that jeff had attempted to violate our signed design agreement, by sending us an invoice charging us for additional adjustments on "final total under roof footage" Aur) while we were still in discussion to decrease the aur total. The design agreement stated that after the initial 40% deposit, the payment schedule would be--"at completion of bid-ready plans: 40% ($.80/ft) of the total anticipated design fee" and "at final completion: 20% ($0.40) +/- an adjustment for the final total under roof footage."
Our signed design agreement printed "6,000 sq ft" as the anticipated total under roof footage Aur) and "$12,000" as the anticipated design fee. However, jeff's final invoice charged twice for adjustments on footage increase based on the non-final, working aur tally of "7,011 sq ft" Which again was a new surprise, since we never knew what the working aur sq ft was until the nov 21 prelim estimate. Jeff's prelim concepts never included total aur sq ft, only the smaller living space sq ft). The agreement noted that any adjustments for final aur total should only be charged at final completion of designs--not upon termination of unfinished designs, especially since we informed jeff that the working aur total was not our desired final number.
The extreme lack of communication regarding budget, design phase, and extra charges for work done with no notice appears to be deceptive and very much like a "bait and switch"--a situation where we were led to believe that we could build a high quality home at a lower cost with a space-saving designer that had construction knowledge. Instead, we went in circles on the prelim design for months, working with a builder that had limited drafting abilities and a tendency to create non space-saving designs which increased sq ft without any consideration to budget or cost.
Jeff's inability to design efficiently to save time and money, his total lack of communication regarding design phase and budget, and his unethically high overbilling for work not shown until after being charged has led us to intense feelings of distress, dismay, and discouragement.
Polk Design Build Group, LLC Reviews
In late nov 2015, my wife and i met with jeff polk of polk design + build group llc for an initial consult to design and build a custom home in southlake. He quickly caught our attention by quoting a significantly low construction cost Including his builder's fee) as a rough estimate for our ideal size home--one far lower than any other builder we spoke to.
In jan 2016, we visited a couple of his completed homes to confirm the build quality, and jeff warmly assured us that his designing abilities were equal to any architect's and that he could do any style we wished. With confidence, we contracted him to design our dream home in feb 2016--one that would be a challenge to do well on our narrow lot--and swiftly paid the nonrefundable 40% deposit to get started.
We soon found out in our first design meeting that jeff had oversold his abilities. He could not draw or sketch any concepts in-person; he was only able to design prelims in cad. This slowed down our design process since jeff was unable to accurately visualize different layout options in our meetings, and instead we would wait for a cad layout to arrive by email 1-3 weeks later.
Jeff never asked one question about our building budget. Over 9 months Feb to oct 2016), no prelim pricing was ever discussed/tracked by jeff. On feb 2, before our first design meeting, we requested by email a rough ballpark estimate A realistic low-to-high price range) on the expected building cost of our ideal house, sending him a list of overall design details. Jeff said that he wanted to design our dream house and not limit ourselves...That it would be easy to create first and remove extra things later. He then led us straight into design, without further conversation on numbers for anticipated construction costs on our project...
Only when we asked a second time on oct 31 Finalizing the 2-story prelims and looking ahead to start the bid-ready stage) did jeff email us our first and only "rough estimate" prelim budget on nov 21--almost a month after the request. We were baffled to see the unexpectedly large discrepancy between his initial rough estimate in nov 2015 vs. His current rough estimate in nov 2016. Our original planned sq ft Based on his nov 2015 quote) had gradually been replaced over the design process by jeff's penchant for designing larger rectangular rooms and hallways Contrasting his claims to promote space-saving design)--leading to an increase of 800 sq ft of living space more than planned and resulting in a prelim budget that exceeded our original one by over $200,000.
As we realized that jeff's priority was not to create a budget-friendly home and that he had never shown any interest in monitoring costs, we asked jeff to stop work on our project immediately--especially since we discovered online that another customer had experienced the same over-budget/poor communication runaround with jeff in 2014
With regret, my wife gently notified jeff on dec 13 that we were officially ending our design agreement. Jeff attempted to defend himself, saying that we never gave him a chance to freely design on his own and that he could design a much better house right then and there if we continued with him...But we knew that the lack of budget tracking could cause greater expense and stress in the construction phase and simply confirmed that we wished to end things with a clean break. Jeff agreed that he could have done better with prelim pricing but wished us well...
...Then 9 days later, on dec 22, we received an invoice for $5,734.96 for additional billing of design work jeff said he had done. It was a shock to us, because we had already paid the nonrefundable $4,800 deposit--without expectation of getting any design credit back. Therefore, jeff expected us to pay $10,534.96 for unfinished designs.
In all of our meetings, jeff never showed us exterior elevations nor electrical plans--features that were clearly listed in the second design phase. So, it was completely unexpected to see jeff charge us for "70% of work completed." still in shock, we protested to jeff immediately for being charged for work that we had never seen. He said that we had passed the conceptual phase a long time ago, much to our surprise. Here again was total lack of communication--this time on design stage perception. We had always emailed about our "prelim plans" as late as oct 31, and jeff never clarified that, in his eyes, it had passed the prelim phase long ago, and that he was planning to charge us a significantly large amount more...
Jeff emailed us a second revised invoice at the end of our evening talk on dec 22, saying he was being gracious in decreasing the bill to $4,734.96 Which would mean a revised invoice of $9,534.96 for the unfinished designs). However, we felt that our complete, naive trust in jeff's "honesty and integrity" had been badly shattered and crushed...
...Especially after we discovered that jeff had attempted to violate our signed design agreement, by sending us an invoice charging us for additional adjustments on "final total under roof footage" Aur) while we were still in discussion to decrease the aur total. The design agreement stated that after the initial 40% deposit, the payment schedule would be--"at completion of bid-ready plans: 40% ($.80/ft) of the total anticipated design fee" and "at final completion: 20% ($0.40) +/- an adjustment for the final total under roof footage."
Our signed design agreement printed "6,000 sq ft" as the anticipated total under roof footage Aur) and "$12,000" as the anticipated design fee. However, jeff's final invoice charged twice for adjustments on footage increase based on the non-final, working aur tally of "7,011 sq ft" Which again was a new surprise, since we never knew what the working aur sq ft was until the nov 21 prelim estimate. Jeff's prelim concepts never included total aur sq ft, only the smaller living space sq ft). The agreement noted that any adjustments for final aur total should only be charged at final completion of designs--not upon termination of unfinished designs, especially since we informed jeff that the working aur total was not our desired final number.
The extreme lack of communication regarding budget, design phase, and extra charges for work done with no notice appears to be deceptive and very much like a "bait and switch"--a situation where we were led to believe that we could build a high quality home at a lower cost with a space-saving designer that had construction knowledge. Instead, we went in circles on the prelim design for months, working with a builder that had limited drafting abilities and a tendency to create non space-saving designs which increased sq ft without any consideration to budget or cost.
Jeff's inability to design efficiently to save time and money, his total lack of communication regarding design phase and budget, and his unethically high overbilling for work not shown until after being charged has led us to intense feelings of distress, dismay, and discouragement.