Dobay Construction

My husband hired Dobay Construction in July 2018 to attach a carport to his existing one car garage. He had several quotes ranging from $2200-$2600 from other contractors. Mr. Dobay offered to do the job for $1900 if my husband paid cash. He was very friendly and personable and assured us that he would secure the proper permit(s), build the structure to code and cover the carport with a beautiful metal roof that matched the color of the garage. He didn't show up to start the project. No phone call to explain and it took days for my husband to get a return call. When we finally did hear from him, he told my husband that he was having trouble obtaining a permit and that it would "take some time." One time he even stated that he was right in the zoning officer's office as they were speaking and everything was fine. My husband went to the zoning office and found out that he had not applied for a permit at all. Mr. Dobay apologized and explained that he was running behind on his larger jobs and that he'd get everything done right away. He showed up sporadically all summer (blaming bad weather even on beautiful days) and his "crew" consisted of a young lady he introduced as his daughter, who scrambled to help him finish the roof before it started to snow. She was clearly inexperienced and put the nail holes all through the custom metal roof panels because she wasn't able to find the beams, so the roof of the carport leaks. We finally thought the job was complete in early November 2018 and my husband invited his friend (who happened to work for a licensed contractor) over to see his new carport. He immediately noticed that the carport was not properly secured to the garage and told us it wasn't up to code because the first heavy snowfall would cause it to collapse. My husband called the city inspector, who came out and immediately and attached a violation notice on the carport and said that we had 6 months to have it built to code or it would have to be torn down. The inspector also informed us that the carport was built right into a city "right of way" access area and that there was no way the contractor would not be aware of that if he obtained the proper permits, as required. Mr. Dobay said that the work was impossible to complete because of the winter weather and assured us he would come back first thing in the spring to correct the issues. He did not contact us at all or return any phone calls we made until we sent him a certified letter on AUGUST 2019 informing him that we would take legal action against him if he did not contact us to finish the job. His wife called my husband the day they received the certified letter and was very rude, but said he would be out the next day to start working on the repairs. The weather was fine, but the next day was actually a week and a half later. He spent one afternoon doing the work to properly secure the carport to the garage, but then we never heard from him again. He would not return any of my husband's calls after that and my husband was diagnosed with cancer in October and passed away 32 days later. I've heard that Mr. Dobay does very good work on kitchen and bath remodels, although many others have since told us that they had the same problem with his unreliability) and he did admit to my husband that building a carport was beyond his area of expertise, but that is no excuse for his refusal to call people and show up to do the work. Please be careful if you are considering using DOBAY CONSTRUCTION and if you do, make sure you include a "TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE" clause in your contract!