BRUNSWICK, Maine — Life hasn't looked quite the same since COVID-19 took hold of the world nearly three years ago. One major facet of this new reality has been an explosion in the housing market, with prices for existing homes skyrocketing and never cooling quite down to where they once were.
With that much higher price tag on existing homes and rentals, some people have opted to build their own houses instead, giving them autonomy over design and location. It's a decision that can have a lot of perks, but it can also present some complications: Maine does not require general contractors to be licensed or regulated by the state.
Some homebuyers in Brunswick say they're learning that lesson the hard way, after signing a contract with local real estate developer Renewabuilt, handing over tens of thousands of dollars and then having nothing to show for a final product. After a series of events, Renewabuilt is now out of business.
NEWS CENTER Maine spoke with all parties involved to find out what went wrong and what other Mainers should pay attention to if they're planning to build a house.
Jarron Conti and Dana Peterson
In early 2021, couple Jarron Conti and Dana Peterson decided they wanted to sell their city home in South Portland and move about 30 miles north to a quieter spot in Brunswick. Working with a real estate agent, they said they found a to-be-built property on Greystone Lane and met a contractor, real estate developer Renewabuilt, planning to build a house there and working on a lot next door.
Conti and Peterson said they put in an offer on the lot they went to see, but Renewabuilt's owners Todd and Lisa Erickson went with a separate offer, saying they would agree to a collaboration in the future. When Conti and Peterson found a plot of land on Collinsbrook Road in Brunswick, they reached back out to the Ericksons because they said they liked the aesthetic of Renewabuilt's energy-efficient homes.
"[Lisa] and Jarron were just back-and-forth with ideas, sharing pictures from magazines. [A] very mid-century modern look was what we were going for," Peterson explained.
The couple signed a contract with Renewabuilt on March 24, 2021 in a build package for a total purchase price of $500,000 for the house and the land. They also signed a few addendums to the contract. The first appointed new real estate agents to the project. The second made Conti and Peterson's earnest deposits nonrefundable, except in the case of the buyer losing financing. The third changed the seller name from Renewabuilt to RHI-Collinsbrook, LLC.
Conti and Peterson signed off on all of the addendums. They wrote the first check for $20,000 in May and then a second check for $80,000 in June after closing on their South Portland home, as stipulated in the contract. At this point, they had paid Renewabuilt $100,000 in total. That's when they said communication started to deteriorate.
"It felt like we were chasing them for questions or any answers that we wanted," Conti said.
"It would be two emails to them to one response," Peterson said. "It was very much to the fact of, 'We can’t predict this thing. There are supply chain issues. There’s labor issues.'"
Conti and Peterson said the situation became more tense over email during a conversation about appliances in mid-October of 2021. On Saturday, Oct. 16, they received a final email from Todd Erickson, which read:
All,
We appreciate your frustration and want to address this situation head on. After pushing this build forward as hard as humanly possible, it has become glaringly apparent that we will be unable to deliver this home anywhere near the timetable in the PSA, or anytime soon thereafter, for that matter.
Windows and some other critical materials are still 60 to 90 days out with no guarantees on delivery dates. With winter conditions approaching and holiday schedules inevitably pushing every subcontractor out into January and February, it would be logical and most fair to all parties to come to amicable terms that allow each of us to move forward with other plans.
The blunt truth is that it would be sensible and fair to everyone involved to NOT extend the current PSA, given the unforeseen circumstances and scheduling issues that all builders are experiencing across the industry. It is systemic and not easy to solve.
While we very much appreciate the opportunity, this build is clearly not going to meet anyone's expectations. It is highly advisable to face the realities as they exist now and move forward in a productive and logical manner. Addressing this honestly will allow all parties to refocus energies and resources accordingly.
Respectfully,
Todd
"[Todd] at the time knew that we had to be out of the house that we sold [in South Portland] back in May by the end of December," Peterson said. "He knew we were on a tight timeline, but there was never an option of, 'Hey, how can we talk through this? How can we sit down and attempt this project?'"
Conti and Peterson said they offered to take the lot as-is for the $100,000 deposit they had already given. Todd came back with a counteroffer for them to buy the land for an additional $150,000. They did not agree to that, saying a friend of theirs in the trade told them the site was only worth about $150,000 total.
"It would’ve been $250,000 for the land, a tiny portion cleared, and a laid foundation, which was just a slab. It wasn’t even a dug foundation. It was just a slab," Peterson said.
In November of 2021, they said Todd offered to pay them $100,000 by Dec. 31, but they did not agree to that either, citing "issues on [their] side" and the expense of legal fees as reasons why. Todd's attorney, Paul Bulger, told NEWS CENTER Maine the "deal broke down over security for the $100,000. Todd could not complete the build without construction financing, and the financier would not subordinate to $100,000."
Per their contract, Conti and Peterson went to mediation with the Ericksons on Dec. 20 and said they came to a verbal agreement that Todd would pay back their money. As of Jan. 18, Conti and Peterson's attorney was still trying to get a signed copy of that agreement from Todd. The couple said that's when they filed a lawsuit and then filed a lis pendens on the property.
In March, Bulger reached out to Conti and Peterson's attorney, saying Todd's mortgage lender would not continue to lend with that lis pendens there. The parties came to a subsequent settlement agreement that the Ericksons would pay them a principal sum of $110,000 secured by a mortgage and due in full by July 31, 2022.
To date, Conti and Peterson said they still have not received any of their money back from the Ericksons.
"Through our process, we haven’t found a lot of consumer protection. We question ourselves. We’re like, 'Are we crazy?'" Peterson said.
"Where is that money?" Conti said. "If nothing is being completed, and nothing is being done, and mortgages are being pulled by the lenders, where is this money going?"
Keith Trafton and Kate Wight
Another couple in Brunswick, Keith Trafton and Kate Wight, also agreed to speak with NEWS CENTER Maine about a similar experience with Renewabuilt.
Trafton said they signed a contract for $709,000 with 10% down for a build on Jasper Drive in Brunswick in May of 2022. Trafton owns a local HVAC and plumbing company called Excel Mechanical & Construction LLC and had a deal with Todd Erickson to do some of his own trades to help with the cost of the house. The couple paid $20,000 in May and then $50,908 in June.
"While we were actively giving him money, things were getting done. You could see there was a little bit of progress being made," Trafton said.
Trafton said the situation started to feel a bit weird when Todd asked him to do work outside his typical trades.
"I know exactly what is required of me and my specific trades, and he was asking me to go outside of the lines of those a bit," Trafton said. "[He was] like, 'Hey, can you do this part?' I was like, 'Normally, that’s this trade,' but I did it because it’s my house."
Trafton said in late September, work stopped. He said he also heard from fellow subcontractors working on the property that they hadn't been paid. On Oct. 18, Trafton said he received a call from Todd's real estate agent, who relayed the message that finances had fallen through, and they couldn't complete the build.
Trafton said for him, the most frustrating part about the situation is he felt there was no transparency about Renewabuilt's struggles with any finances.
"None of that was ever said," Trafton said. "It basically was like, 'It’s all figured out. We’re all good to go. I’ll take that check. Sign the contract, and give me the check.'"
Throughout this process, Trafton and Wight had also asked if they could add an additional dwelling unit onto the property for Wight's parents, to which the Ericksons agreed. Wight's parents sold their home in Bethel in September of 2022. Trafton and Wight said her parents are now living in a house that Trafton owns (and, under other circumstances, would rent out for extra income) because they have nowhere else to go.
During an interview with NEWS CENTER Maine in late October, Trafton and Wight said they were planning to pursue civil and criminal charges to try to get their money back from the Ericksons.
Renewabuilt's response
NEWS CENTER Maine reached out to the Ericksons directly for comment. They referred us to their attorney, Paul Bulger, who only spoke to the dispute between the Ericksons and Conti and Peterson, calling it a "typical builder's dispute." He also said via email that "Todd regrets that he was unable to meet the mediation agreement timeline," later adding, "I am deeply saddened by the turn of events for Todd, his family, and these Buyers."
Bulger also provided a statement from Renewabuilt to NEWS CENTER Maine about issues with Conti and Peterson. It notes Renewabuilt was formed in 2018 to "design and develop extremely energy-efficient, healthy homes at attainable price points" and delivered its first home in August of 2021. It also mentions in that time, Todd was "battling an aggressive cancer diagnosis." The statement later lists "winter conditions from late 2021 into spring of 2022," "industry-wide delays in materials," and "costs of critical building materials and subcontractor labor...skyrocket[ing]" as factors in the delay of Conti and Peterson's build.
The statement then reads: "On top of these unprecedented conditions and obstacles, Erickson and Renewabuilt became the scapegoat target of unwarranted online and direct attacks by dissatisfied clients, Jarron Conti and Dana Peterson. ... This continued barrage of unwarranted and untrue attacks froze Renewabuilt's abilities to operate and ensnared its existing clients, resulting in a wave of directly-related damages."
The statement ends reading, "Erickson fully intends to cooperate with the Attorney General's civil discovery inquiry and bring all these facts to light."
NEWS CENTER Maine reached out to the Office of the Maine Attorney General for more information. The AG's office said it has received four total complaints about Renewabuilt but mentioned those parties either stopped responding to the office, declined to mediate, or hired lawyers to pursue private legal remedies.
The AG's office did forward the redacted claims to NEWS CENTER Maine. One lined up with Conti and Peterson's complaint. Another said a party had gone under contract in April of 2021 for a home in Bath and paid Todd a $24,500 deposit with completion expected for Oct. 1. It said the party pulled out of the project in August when little progress had been made on the build and eventually got Todd to sign a promissory note for the return of the deposit. The complaint said that payment had not yet been made.
A third complaint from July of 2021 said another party had entered into a contract with Todd for $517,900 for a build in Falmouth with a completion date around Sept. 1. It said as of early July (after about a five-month span), there was only excavation and footing work done. The party terminated its contract and asked for the return of $51,900 and legal fees, but according to the complaint, Todd told them that was not possible.
The final complaint from the AG's office did not have a lot of specific information listed.
NEWS CENTER Maine also contacted John Mansour, the CEO of Titan Funding, which was one of the lenders for Renewabuilt. In a statement, Mansour said in part:
"We have been working with Renewabuilt’s equity investors, homeowners who provided payments to Renewabuilt, and contractors/vendors to negotiate a solution which works for all interested parties. Through that process, we are all hoping to make the best of an unfortunate situation and mitigate losses and disappointment."
Tips from the experts
Because the state of Maine doesn't require general contractors to be licensed, the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Maine said it is important consumers do their homework before signing a contract with someone. NEWS CENTER Maine spoke with a representative, who gave us the following tips:
- Ask for references. If you're planning to work with a general contractor, you should ask former customers about their experiences and how their product has held up over time.
- Look at Google reviews.
- Beware of the lowest-cost option. If a builder is very below market rate, there's probably a reason why. You should be asking the builder how long they've been in business, whether they're actively trying to follow best-industry practices, and what their warranty policy is.
- Trust your gut. If you feel like a general contractor may not be trustworthy, you shouldn't compromise on such an expensive investment.
- Show a lawyer your contract ahead of time.
- Have a detailed scope of work in your contract that is well-defined. If the plan is not detailed, it can be easier for a builder to make excuses.