ComplaintsforDesign Appruv Inc

• Initial Complaint

  02/10/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  Was offered design services based on retainer with no services rendered

• Initial Complaint

  01/13/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Delivery Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  Paid almost $6,000 for engineering plans that were never delivered

• Initial Complaint

  12/23/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  I have a contract with Design Appruv for design and drafting a code compliant custom home and processing the building permit.

• Initial Complaint

  10/06/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  I hired design appruv to remodel our home. I paid a down payment of 4K to get started. Since the beginning Ive been dragged in circles, first they had Covid, now one person left and so they had to start my project, now their company is getting smaller, now there is a tragedy in the family. I dont get responses from them, their phones dont work. Its been a year and I feel like they stole my money and ran with it. I keep asking for a refund but the owner **** just keeps making excuses

• Initial Complaint

  09/06/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  -Signed contract for architectural design for ~500sq ft. residential extension on 2/16/2021 (been 19 months to date)-Paid $10,152.22 (for Design+Permit Mgmt, HOA ******************** Structural Engineering); no services have been completed other than a proposed design -Multiple turnover with designers -Been in contact with CEO *********************, and Operations Director ******************* since January 2022 to get resolution (had at least 10 emails and 4 one on one calls detailing issues with change of designers and incomplete work); **** and *** said they would get back to me with a plan and never got back; they are not responding to emails and their phone system does not work -I am requesting for the activities I paid for to be completed or refund my money

• Initial Complaint

  07/19/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  ********************* signed a contract with me more than one year ago to design my project in Spring Valley.I always paid in time according to our agreement.After more than one year, I haven't received my building permit, and Design Appruv even haven't prepared and paid for my grading plan, which was included in our agreement.********************* didn't pay his subcontractors and employees in time, so he lost his team, and I don't have my project manager.He even hasn't returned my partial refund for the project.From his ex-employees, I know that **** received money from about 150 clients who are in the same or even worth situation as me.

• Initial Complaint

  07/08/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  We previously filed a BBB complaint with this company on 5/1/2022 (see ref #********). We signed a contract on 3/3/2021 with Design Appruv to draft and submit plans for extending our home in the city of La Mesa by 865 square feet for an amount of $10,724.99 that we paid in full on 11/4/2021. We have had countless issues with their service. The original timeline was estimated in our project proposal to be **** weeks. Our project has now been delayed by more than 12 months over the projected timeline.Design Appruv replied to our first BBB complaint on 5/3/2022 to inform us that the plans were finally submitted to the city of La Mesa on 4/27/22. The owner ********************* also told us that we would be offered compensation for the delays. Since his reply, things have not gotten any better. After 8 weeks of waiting with no news and 4 emails of which 3 went unanswered, we finally received an email on 6/28/2022 telling us that there was yet again personnel turnover in the company. We set up a phone appointment with them for 7/1/2022, however they canceled at the last minute and did not call us back or reschedule.We contacted the city of La Mesa on 7/5/2022 to ask for an update and spoke with someone who told us there were two submissions for our address: one on 4/11/2022 and the other on 4/27/2022. Because of this erroneous duplication of submissions, both applications have been pending. Clearly Design Appruv has not followed up with the city in the past two months. Design Appruv has again demonstrated lack of anticipation, organization, planning, tracking, and professionalism. We are now 7/7/22 and our project has lost another 2 months. We also never heard back about the offered compensation.We want Design Appruv to show us that they are pro-actively working on our project in a timely manner. We want Design Appruv to reimburse us 40% of the **** for not reaching the terms of the contract in a reasonable time.

• Initial Complaint

  06/21/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  A contract for services should have taken no more than 4 months **** It has been 10 months and we have nothing to show for. We were promised over and over, but company owner not even a call.This company took our money and doesn't bother to keep their word. There is no way this could be a company that want to get a client's work done, or cares.We paid several of thousands of dollars and ten months later have nothing to show for it, no calls, no plans, no return calls. Nothing contracted for completed in 10 months. I am in shock. They manage to ensure their marketing is doing well, but not their customer(s). Very sad, building new construction is supposed to be exciting and serious at the same time. Construction is time sensitive, the contract states about 3 months, we are going on 10 months and have nothing done to go into the city for a building permit. *************** comes from action and honesty. I hope that no one else ever has to deal with a situation like we have been put into. We trusted and we should have done research first.

• Initial Complaint

  06/19/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  We started our initial project with Design Appruv via first payment of $2,469.98 on March 22, 2021. We filed our Vista building permit application on July 14, 2021. We then paid another $1482.00 on September 3, 2021 for construction documents (i.e. architect plans, codes, etc.). We have one final payment once we receive the permits. It is now June 19, 2022 and they have not completed the job. We have sent numerous emails and phone calls to ***************************, Project Design Manager, as well as *********************, ********** *********************** **** On June 5, I emailed a complaint to *********************, in which I got an "out of office" automated email that he will be back on June 7th, and still have not heard back from him. It is now June 19, 2022 and they have not completed the job.

• Initial Complaint

  05/01/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We signed a contract on 3/3/2021 with Design Appruv to draft plans for extending our home in the city of La Mesa by 865 square feet for an amount of $10,724.99 that we have now paid in full as per the contract. We have had countless issues with their service since. The original timeline was estimated in our project proposal to be **** weeks. Our project has now been delayed by more than 10 months over the projected timeline.There have been several reasons leading to this delay: they have experienced multiple changes in their organization, they initially misunderstood our project goals, they made inefficient decisions, and most of all they have been extremely slow at communicating with us. They didn't keep us informed of the status of our project when there were delays (e.g., what is going wrong and slowing them down). They almost never replied to our messages when we asked for updates, or they took a very long time to reply (weeks). We let them know several times in the past about our frustration and disappointments with them, but things have just gotten worse.Since 3/4/2022, the plans have been drafted and ready to be submitted to the city of La Mesa. Design Appruv is by contract supposed to do the submission. After countless requests and adding the *** in CC of our communications, we finally got a reply on 4/27/20222. The *** told us that our "plans have been in queue for final submission" and they will send us an update as soon as they've confirmed the receipt of submission. This is basically the same update we got 6 weeks ago. As usual, we didn't get an apology nor a concrete date as to when the submission will happen, which makes us even more worried and frustrated.We want Design Appruv to give us a concrete and short timeline on when the submission will occur. We want Deign Appruv to conform to this exact timeline. We want Design Appruv to reimburse us 25% of the **** for not reaching the terms of the contract in a reasonable time.

  Business response

  05/03/2022

  This project had suffered severe delays due to the unique nature of the project site located on a steep hillside and unfortunate concerns with internal struggles with previous employees. We did everything we could in our power to pivot multiple times throughout the design process, going above and beyond our allotted project's parameters to assure the client received a product they were happy with. Frustrations due to communication unfortunately arose from past employees disregarding their duties as project managers and has since been addressed. We are more than happy to provide a credit on their account for the lost time associated with the project.
  

  
  Per the contract scope of work, every project goes through a thorough pre-permit submission screening which typically takes several weeks to over a month. Due to the unique nature of the site itself, we were able to save the client 10s of thousands of dollars in developmental costs by creatively conforming the project design to meet the requirements of the steep hillside the existing home is built upon.

  The project was completed and submitted for building permit several days prior to this complaint and the contract has been fulfilled in full pending city approvals for their residential home addition. We have about 3-4 weeks until we hear back with city comments, address them and resubmit (2-3 cycles of reviews total) we anticipate building permits taking a total of 4-6 months on average based on the speed of the planning department.

  Thanks,

  *********************,
  CEO & Founder, Design Appruv, Inc.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩