Derman Homes at 134 Ocean Garden Lane, Cape Canaveral, Florida.

We have had a horrible experience with this company. We live in Philadelphia and have invested in several condos in Port of St. John and Cape Canaveral area of Brevard county, Florida. Derman Homes' owner Mark Derman is the husband of the realtor we worked with. She recommended him to renovate our units. She had a very reassuring way of talking people into things and did a fine job in helping us purchasing 6 units in the last 5 years. Since we had a good relationship with the wife, we trusted Mark Derman to work on our units. 3 units that needed work have been renovated by Derman Homes and rented as long term homes by a management company. We didn't go down to see these units. Early this year, we bought one near the ocean and planned on renovating and furnishing it for vacation rental. In June, after Derman Homes completed the renovation and a rental management company completed furnishing, it was rented out for 2 months. In August, we decided to visit for a week before our son started school while the unit was empty. We stayed in the unit for a week and were shocked to see that several items he claimed to have replaced or added were not done, the quality of the materials and products were very poor, the shower curtain bar newly installed came down while I was taking a shower, the toilet seat cover was so flimsy that it gave in with a creaking sound when sitting on it, the tub that was "professionally cleaned" was still rusty near the faucet as the old leaking faucet was not replaced, which he later replaced upon our request. After our visit, we emailed with him back and forth asking for detailed charges on items and proof of purchases in order to get some money back. We tried to get approximately $2500 back on products and materials by subtracting the amount he charged from the approximate costs online or in store at Home Depot or Lowes with a 30% mark up, the mark up percentage he claimed he added. He refused to do so but gave us $770 back on those items that were not done, including the $225 tub cleaning. A few examples of the charges were: $580 for 3 one gallon paint and 2 fifty gallon primer, $455 for floor cleaning, $56 per sq ft for the "upgraded laminate" in comparison to our current contractor's $36 per sq ft of level 1 granite, $385 for a couple of the least inexpensive types of GFIs, a dozen of outlets and switches. Mark Derman charged us a total of $11300 (minus the $770) for a cheap upgrade that should have cost somewhere around $6000 to $7000 and since it is too cheap, nothing will last.

While our complaint emails went on, his responses were repeatedly that his foreman missed this and that or his foreman didn't know something or his foreman misunderstood his instruction or he has to go to ask his foreman...

He was able to do it because we were not around to find out and to inspect. He didn't expect we would visit this time since we never did before. Altogether, we paid him around $45000 for all 4 jobs. We hate to think back. We learned our lesson. Don't trust anyone. Check things out yourself, no matter how busy you are.