SEVENTY-SEVEN-year-old Usline Bentham is heart-broken after handing over $130 000 to “a building contractor” since 2009 to construct for her a three-bedroom wall house at Berlin Road in St Philip.
Up to this day she has not received the house; the “contractor” cannot be found; and she has learnt that she has no claim to the land on which he was building.
Fighting back tears, the elderly woman, who returned to Barbados in 2005 after living in the United States for several years, said she was spending sleepless nights over the loss of her hard-earned money.
She explained how she contacted “the contractor” after seeing a newspaper advertisement by his company.
“He picked me up and drove me around Barbados, showing me houses he had built, and showing me land on which he could build a house for me. We finally settled for a piece of land at Berlin Road, and he told me that he would build me a house there for $170 000.”
Bentham said she signed a contract with the builder and proceeded to give him $130 000 in cheques in various amounts, which he told her was for the house and land package.
However, all that is now on the land is a course of blocks for the foundation.
“I kept going to the site to see how the work was progressing, but there would be nobody there; and when I?tried to reach him he would not answer the phone.
“One day I went to the site, and a man came up to me and told me that the man who was building the house for me was a fraud. He then took me to this other man who lived behind the property . . . Mr Forde, who owned the land. He told me that the contractor could not build the house there for me.”
Shocked by the discovery, Bentham said she contacted her attorney and also made a report to the police.
“I don’t know where else to turn because no one seems to know where he is. That was my life savings that I gave to him and I am still here renting a house for $1 000 a month. I?never knew he was like that . . . he appeared to be so nice,” she cried.
She said she knew “the contractor” was still in Barbados because, after not hearing from him for two years, she finally got a number for his sister and called there leaving a message for him to contact her.
“He called me two weeks ago from a private number and told me that he had not forgotten me, and that he would bring back my money soon,” she stated.
Meanwhile, Beresford Forde, the owner of the land, told the SUNDAY?SUN?that he entered into a deal with “the contractor”, which he never fulfilled.
“He was supposed to build the house on my land for the old lady in exchange for building a house for me; but all he did was to cut out the foundation and then he disappeared. I?never expected that the woman would put all of that money in his hands,” he stated.
Another victim, Michelle Boyce, of Eagle Hall, St Michael, said she fired the same “contractor” after she realized he was taking money from her while delaying the building of her house.
“He received $35 000 to put on the roof which he never did. We eventually fired him and I?had to pay another contractor to redo all of the work, because it was not done correctly. Up to this day my house is not even finished,” she lamented.
Steve Herbert, of West Terrace, St James, said while “the contractor” did not get away with any huge amount of money from him, he fired him after he too realized he was dishonest.
“I would pay him after he showed me his wage bill, but every Friday a lot of men would gather at my house which he was building waiting for him to be paid – and I would have to pay them out of my pocket because he would never show up, and nobody could reach him.”
The man said “the contractor” had also ripped off an elderly woman whose house he was building in Husbands, St James, by stealing her solar heater and giving it to a truck driver in lieu of money he had owed him for freighting.
“Up to this day the truck driver is still paying back the woman for the water heater; and the woman never moved into her house because he left so much bad work that she had to hire someone else to rectify it,” he explained.
Richard Reid, of Tudor Bridge, St Michael, said he also had nothing but bad memories of “the contractor”, whom he hired to rebuild his house after it was destroyed by fire.
He said not only had the man disappeared for months without completing the job, but he also did a lot of substandard work.
“When he resurfaced it was one story after a next. He claimed that he had to travel to Guyana because his children had taken ill, or that he was robbed, or that he had lost all of his information, [or] that his workers had sabotaged him. It was either one thing or a next.”
Reid said when he got tired and finally gave up on “the contractor”, even though he had only paid him according to the work done, he still found himself out of thousands of dollars, because he had to get someone to rectify most of the work.
“I?think this man uses loopholes in the law to get away with what he is doing. The police are telling people that they would have to sue him, and these are people who are already out of [pocket] and now have to go and pay a lawyer.
“This man needs to be stopped before somebody takes the law into their own hands,” Reid said.
