Contractor Faces Home Improvement Fraud Charges After Abandoning Unfinished Project

Some corporate jobs come with a windfall of perks, from free food leftover from catered events to use of an employer-provided car or furnished apartment.  When you operate a very small business, the line between business and personal expenses is less than clear.  At tax time, you open the calculator app on your phone to find out what percentage of your Internet bill is for personal use and how much is for business use; the formula usually starts by calculating how many hours are in a week, followed by figuring out how many hours per week you spend using your home Internet for work tasks.  The IRS sometimes gets suspicious if they think that you are writing off personal expenses as business expenses.  Is it really a business expense to dry clean your work clothes or if you buy lunch for your employees?  Everyone can agree, though, that it is a bad business practice to collect advance payment from customers but to spend it on personal expenses instead of providing the services for which the customers have paid.  If you are a building contractor, and police are accusing you of fraud related to unfinished projects, contact a Pittsburgh white collar crime lawyer.

Pennsylvania Home Improvement Fraud Laws

Disputes between home improvement contractors and clients are common.  Sometimes projects take longer and cost more than contractors anticipate, despite their diligent efforts to prepare an accurate estimate before the customer agrees to the project.  Most of the time, it is possible for the customer and the contractor to resolve the dispute on their own; at worst, the customer writes a negative review of the contractor online, or the contractor makes less money on the project than they had expected.  Sometimes the parties resolve their disputes in civil court.  Charges of home improvement fraud only apply when the home improvement contractor knowingly lied to the customer, and the customer incurred financial losses because of it.

In the News

Garry Dobson of Monroe County is a home improvement contractor, and he is facing criminal charges for home improvement fraud.  In June 2022, he agreed with a customer in Cresco that he would build an addition to their house, and the price he quoted them for the project was $90,000.  Pursuant to their agreement, the couple paid Dobson $45,000, 50 percent of the project budget, upfront so that he could buy materials and hire subcontractors.  By September, he had not started work on the addition, and the customer asked him for a refund, but he refused to return the money.  It turned out that he had spent it on personal expenses.  In May 2024, he was charged with home contractor fraud.

Contact Gary E. Gerson About Criminal Defense Cases

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for fraud in relation to your home contracting business.  Contact the law offices of Gary E. Gerson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about your case.

Source:

wnep.com/article/news/local/monroe-county/monroe-county-contractor-charged-with-home-improvement-fraud-pennsylvania/523-b105513f-d2e3-4457-bc8d-11adac26e0d5