Would like to bring awareness to people who are looking to engage this person known as *name redacted*, to be their Interior Designer for the flats. We were contacted by *name redacted* previously introduced himself from *name redacted*, but subsequently gave us a quotation from *name redacted* (de registered as of today) when we sent in our RFQ on Renopedia website.
We engaged him as our “Interior Designer” for our resale flat. He overpromised, under deliver.
1. Designs are very old school and basically, we tell him what we what and designed ourselves
2. Project management fail – poor time and coordination (will have to always manage ourselves and repeatedly remind him to inform contractors to come up to do certain works)
3. No integrity – our resale package comes with hacking and supply of tiles for living and all rooms. But when choosing tiles, he insisted that we will have to pay extra $10k minimum for tiles, and instead pushed us to get vinyl overlay (this part was overlooked till we decided to go through Small Claims when we went through the quotation thoroughly)
4. Changed our design without asking – I.e we agreed to cove lighting, but he removed it saying we changed our mind but it was him who forgot about it and have to show him WhatsApp proof. (This is just one of the many)
5. Agreed on a handover date with at least 90% done as we have to handover our old unit. (Already given 3 months to do the reno) But we moved in with carpentries without doors, non functional kitchen for 2 weeks.
6. Paintwork fail – as it’s a resale unit, it was agreed upon to redo all paintwork and do what it’s necessary. But his contractor or rather his instructions to his contractor was to paint over without scraping off old paintwork and applying sealant. That cause our paint to peel off and crack even before we moved in. Suspected that the contractor added water to the paint as the paint we purchased ourselves did not chip off. *name redacted* highly recommended us to use Momento Paint and assured that his painter was very experienced in this area, but the end result was totally different from what it should be. Had to chase multiple times to do touch up but still unable to rectify many paintwork
7. Tiles in the kitchen and toilets were not later properly. Uneven floorings and “holes” between tiles.
8. After the works are almost done, which was 1 month after move in, we chased him to go through the final invoice with us as we had quite a few changes (many omissions). But he kept delaying and refused to refund us the omissions saying that “he did not owe us anything, what is to be done were done”.
9. Contractors coming to us saying that he did not pay up, thus, the carpenter was not willing to install the remaining fixtures. Painter unwilling to touch up as he did not receive payment. And *name redacted*’s excuse was that we did not pay, but in fact, we made full payment 1 month before our agreed handover date. (We made full payment before handover was because upon work commencement, he said that he has to pay for materials etc and may have delay, and was too late for us to find a new ID by then we realised something was amiss. Moreover, we’ve already paid deposit which was what he said as non-refundable. In order not to delay our reno, we made full payment progressively by then in hopes to speed up our reno)
We went through Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) to get a refund on our omissions and works not rectified since he was not responding to our messages and calls. His partner, who was the sole proprietor of the company, *name redacted* attended the consultation. His side of the story from *name redacted* was that he has completed the works but we weren’t satisfied, so at first, he insisted on only doing rectification works to our satisfactory but not to refund us money. After showing him the proofs in front of the mediator, we agreed upon an amount for refund in instalments.
