Fair & Square Remodeling LLC

Slow, and poor communication. Company went out of business when about 80% done. Had to hire 3 contractors to finish.

[*** Link removed ***] Above is pasted the Minnesota court records of Mr. Michael Patrick Otto date of birth 08-03-1967. He is a very large white male-about 6'6" and 330 lbs. After talking to tradespeople I was informed that Mr. Otto had been convicted several times for fraud. Here is a link to one: [*** Link removed ***] Here is another link: [*** Link removed ***] It would appear he has lost his license in Minnesota and most likely other states, so he had his business listed under his wife's name. In my opinion; he is nothing but a criminal. Hire someone else and run from him as fast as you can!

This is more of a eulogy of the deceased; as this business, owner/CEO Mike Otto, has declared bankruptcy and at this time there are about 18 law suits filed against him/his company in court. BUTTTTTTTT...…..YOU CAN LEARN what TO DO and NOT TO DO by carefully reading this review (BTW: We personally did not sue him). My wife and I wanted to totally update our 12'x14' kitchen using the same floorplan and then move an 8'6" wall between the current half bath and the garage pushing that wall 18" into the garage for extra room and turn that into a laundry room. Keep in mind that except for that 8'6" wall, no walls were moved and the WasteDrainVent and supply lines were already there for the washer, as well as the 220volt line and connection. (I know a lot about construction, have a big workshop, but I have a lot of health problems that prohibit my doing the work-but I do have to be honesty and say I have never worked in that field). We met with Mike Otto (CEO) at our home. He is a very tall, very stocky blonde haired white man, in his 40's. I'm 6'3" and he towered over me. He seemed liked a nice guy and had been written up in the Star Tribune in Feb 2016 (you can Google that) with a photo of him stating he had a new way of bundling remodeling projects to make the process easier. OUR 1ST MISTAKE: We only talked to him; no other bids. No matter how happy you are or think you are with one businesses proposal, get two others! At the least, it gives you time to think. Our first red flag should have been that he had me sign a very long contract, but then took it with him. Leaving no copy for us nor the State of MN required "Right to Cancel" paperwork. I had to call his office and it took almost a business week to get it emailed to us, technically past the cooling off period of three days. Mike Otto stated to us that it would take 2 months to do this. New Cabinets, flooring, appliances, and a pass thru in the wall from the kitchen to the dining room. Apparently this featured article in the Tribune had garnered him a flood of new business, and he was not able to turn any of it down, even though he had about 13 people working in his office and 2 carpenters. We had 16 sub contractors on our project.....sixteen. The start date kept getting pushed back a month at a time. We finally asked him over to our house and stated we wanted "out". We would pay any reasonable cost on his part (realize NOT a single nail had been driven yet). He gave us a bill for over $30k. (MISTAKE AGAIN: We should have gotten a lawyer). His contract actually had a clause that if you sue him and lost, you had to pay for his attorney fees! When they finally did get started it was a few hours at our home and then on to another project. We would get emails at 11:30 at night that they were going to be there at 7 AM. We had sub contractors showing up with NO announcement. Mr. Otto had leased a suite of offices in the Waterford Office Park and leased new SUV's for his project managers. Everything else was sub'd out. He even had two accountants at one time. Although they had a person who was listed as procurement person to help you pick out appliances, flooring, cabinets and such; no one every helped us. We designed and picked out all the colors, cabinets, counter tops, faucets, sinks (2), paint, flooring and tile work ourselves. Mr. Otto invited us into his suite of offices to apparently show off show 3D glasses software where we could walk through our kitchen. The only problem; they had our kitchen all done incorrectly. I informed Mr. Otto that I can go over to the supplier and touch and feel the cabinets and such, this 3D viewer is of no value. As more and more problems occurred we would get different project managers. We had four total. The first one, Beth, was the only one who actually had a background in residential construction. One of the project managers they assigned to us had a history background after studying in England. But she didn't know a header from a king stud. Mike Otto hired a man with the sole purpose of trying to get his business back on track. I actually had the female accountant tell me when I called and told her the next installment was on the way; "Oh thanks, we really need that money." The man Mr. Otto hired told us he could not get him to stop getting signed projects when they were so far behind finishing projects and cash poor. The last straw was when someone had previously broken off a large drain/vent pipe in the wall, then the insulation was used to cover the mistake and the wall sheet rocked, the cabinets, flooring and countertops installed. Then the plumbers found out there was no drain pipe for the sink. They had to tear out very expensive Omega cabinets, Cambria counter tops and LVT flooring and cut the sides out of two of the cabinets. The man (second in charge) sat down with my wife and I and stated "what do you want to do". We said we just want Mike Otto to walk away. Mr. Otto still wanted over $8,000, saying he didn't have enough to pay his sub contractors. We then discovered that we had been billed $13,000 over the contract price, besides the many, many "change Orders" that always included a hefty amount each. We finally got a very good attorney : MISTAKE #2: Hire the attorney BEFORE you even sign the contract. It will cost about $200-$300, but it will give you peace of mind and information. We ended up owing Mr. Otto, so the $13,000 plus went to that. At this point we just wanted him to void the contract and we would both sign and also provide us with the mechanic lien waivers. It took him months of lying and excuses before he signed the paperwork, but we never got the waivers, and he still insisted on a 6 month non disclosure agreement. I spoke to all of the subs and many had not been paid. One lady at a business stated Mr. Otto actually asked her to just forge a waiver and send it to him. Otto would email me saying he had all the waivers, when that was nothing but a lie. We actually got off fairly good. We probably lost $6k with attorney fees, maybe a bit more. But what we really lost was time. We have a new GC in charge and the project will be done in 3-4 months. That will be a total of 2 years 6 months since Mike Otto started this less than 300 square foot project in March 2017. I have no doubt that Mr., Mike Otto will once again start up a new contracting business under a new name. I personally don't know him, but all I've got to say is, once you get bit, don't put your hand down there again. Find another dog to pet.

Fair & Square was excellent. We had a very large scope which included repainting the entire interior, rip out and rebuild of the kitchen and three bathrooms, and removal of several half-walls. The work was done to high quality and any problems were quickly addressed. The Fair & Square approach includes a project manager to do all of the coordination and planning so there's a 1-stop shop. They are not so big that they're inflexible and not so small that you feel there will be a lot of unpredictability. Also we found Fair & Square to be very adaptable to the level of cost that we wanted to have, and not either locked into being high end or budget. We were very pleased with the detail and accuracy of the cost and schedule estimate, including use of a contingency. This provided a level of predictability that we've rarely seen in this kind of major work scope. There are specific contacts in their office to help with selection and procurement of materials and with follow up warranty service. Both are very convenient and responsive. The use of a project manager and the additional staff does add some expense however it pays off in quality, predictability, and responsiveness. Toward the end there were a couple of problems where we had to reach out to the owner (Mike Otto) for help and he was very responsive and helpful. Overall a great experience and we highly recommend Fair & Square for your home renovation.

Honestly, there was a bad review on Angie's List about the basement, I should have taken the warning. Met with the owner of Fair & Square in July, 2017 and said we wanted to start any time after August 23, be done by November 8 at the latest. We explained that we were looking to have the remodeled bathroom set up to age in place, add a comfort toilet, shower that would work for a wheelchair and the like. While we have two remodeled bathrooms, the cons outweighed the pros and we do not have a bathroom that is for aging in place. • Cons: Owner of the firm is quick to get your business and a smooth salesman. Once issue started to happen, he was AWOL. Lack of attention to detail was a theme. Twice, people were supposed to meet us in our home and went to a different city. Name spelled incorrectly on design, tile schematic was incorrect. Given three start dates and did not end until December 8, 2017. As of December 12, we have not received copies of signed mechanical liens, nor had the final walkthrough. o Was assigned a project manager who had already tendered her resignation to the firm o Procurement was an unpleasant experience and we accept that we may have caused some of our own misery as we wanted items made in America when possible, or at least we did not want items from China based on the bad sheetrock from a few years ago. ▪ Mixed messages as we thought we had selected items only to find out we didn’t. ▪ Sent to a tile store that doesn’t list prices, yet tile salesman said I won’t let you go over budget. We ended up putting back many items and we did go over budget. ▪ Asked them to look / talk to another tile vendor we had talked to and this did not happen. ▪ We were sent five shower doors to select from in various price points and asked what was the difference, besides price. No one could explain, owner got involved and then said one of us gets overwhelmed with options. ▪ When the shower door was about to be installed, it was 4 inches too short. Not sure where this error happened, yet we did not do the measuring and assumed the right size was ordered. The door was due to be installed November 28, yet it was not delivered until December 4th. Once installed, there was a stain on the door that Fair & Square did not notice (Lack of attention to detail) ▪ Same issue with the barn door for the bathroom – 2 inches too short. ▪ Bill from procurement was all over the place. This is the only place to save money, yet could not get answers in a timely manner on how much we were spending. ▪ Items, such as grout, were not included in the proposal for us to see or in the allowance section. They worked with a cabinet vendor that seemingly has one person working. This person was ill and no one can answer questions, causing yet more delays. New project manager, Samantha has been responsive and worked diligently to repair the breakdown in communications and lost of trust. She was great at communicating even when it was bad news. The challenge was there was always been news and we lost trust in the company. • Pros - As tile schematic was incorrect showing tile to ceiling, F&S did honor this picture and they paid for the tile to the ceiling. The vanity for the master bath is lovely as is the barn door. o Marjorie in Accounting is a delight. Very professional and helpful. o Andrey, from Annex Tile, is amazing. He worked on weekends and helped us understand what type of stool to purchase for the shower. He was the one who explained to us that having pebble flooring in the shower would mean there would be a step up to the shower, about 2-3 inches, making it not a great option for aging in place. By this time, it was too late to change. He was also considerate of our pets and would let them out when he was done for the day. Overall, he is the one we would use again and recommend with an A on every category.

When we decided to remodel our basement I contacted several contractors and was kind of surprised at the lack of response I got from a number of contractors. It literally took weeks for one contractor to call me back and some just never bothered. This was NOT the case with Fair & Square. They were very responsive from the start and after meeting with me to review the details of what we wanted to do to finish out our basement they provided me a ballpark estimate for the project. They didn’t come in as the cheapest bid but it did fit within by budget and to that point they had been the easiest to work with and seemed the most interested in the project. We signed on to have them complete the job including adding a fireplace, sound insulation in the ceiling and my favorite, the Onyx shower surround in the bathroom. They took several weeks to complete the project and were great about making sure we knew what to expect and when. If an issue came up they let us know and offered reasonable solutions. The project came in within the cost range they originally proposed and we ended up with exactly what we were looking for. I couldn’t really ask for more than that!

I hired fair & square to remodel our master bedroom suite which included maple floors, fireplace surround, tile bathroom floors and shower, and a vessel sink. The subcontractors they used for our job were seasoned professional who knew their craft. I’d mentally prepared myself for a chaotic mess as this remodel was completed but was pleasantly surprised at how clean the area was kept and how everyone working on it was very respectful of the fact that we were living in the home through the construction. As part of the estimate process fair and square outlined the allowances for each portion of the project. Some of the allowances were a little low and some were a little high but in the end there was only an $800 allowance coverage which I appreciated. I know when remodeling lots of surprises can come up so it was great how thorough and up front they were. Three months after the project was completed we discovered a cracked tile on the shower floor which is the only reason I can't give them the highest rating. I wished they would have caught this before finalizing the project, however, they come out and fixed it promptly with no issues as part of their warranty.

The three season porch that Fair and Square helped us with is amazing! They were able to take our idea offer some great advice to improve the layout and turn it into reality – on time and on budget. From the vaulted ceilings to the ceiling fans – no detail was left to chance. We are so excited to finally have the living area we've always wanted.

Remodeling can be stressful and a bit intimidating when you are new to it but Fair & Square made the experience much better. Their team was always very professional, organized, and pleasant to interact with. Just as all remodeling projects go there are some kinks to work out at times but the Fair & Square team was right on it to make sure the end-product was perfect. I love how the glass shower, floor and wainscoting tile in my bathroom turned out. The Kohler plumbing fixtures they recommended offered great styling and are great quality. I would be likely to recommend this remodeler to others.

We contracted with Fair and Square back in April to complete a living room addition to our existing home and are happy we did. We loved working with our project manager Sam. She was extremely knowledgeable and helpful, foresaw things we didn’t and guided us through the entire project. She was always there to answer our questions and address our concerns and made us feel like we were in good hands. We envisioned a beautiful fireplace as the centerpiece for the room and the work Fair and Square did on the stone surround and Columbia wood flooring turned out even better than we hoped. It makes quite a statement! Thanks Sam and Fair and Square, we're loving our new living room.

After several weeks of research and conducting interviews I ended up choosing Fair & Square Remodeling for our kitchen remodel. Communication was easy, the project manager was responsive to our questions and I felt that he was honest and upfront with the cost. We were pleased for the most part with our decision. There was a delay in getting the cabinets but, again, the project manager kept us informed of the situation. We are pleased with our new kitchen, the painted white cabinets and stone countertops were worth the wait. The luxury vinyl tile flooring is simply amazing.

I’ve hired many contractors for various projects over the years a few compare to Fair and Square Remodeling. I loved the character of my 1930’s cottage style home and the Nokomis neighborhood but simply needed more space. I knew adding a second story addition would not be a simple project so I was careful in selecting a contractor that I felt had the experience to handle the job. I will be the first to admit that not everything with this project went perfectly smooth. There were a few issues along the way due to the age of the house and some prior work that had been done but my project manager was easy to work with, resourceful, and worked through the issues in a way that kept the project on track. My favorite parts of this addition are the engineered wood floors that they recommended and the tile work that matches the existing house perfectly. I would recommend Fair and Square without hesitation.

We would NOT recommend working with Fair & Square. They came by in October of 2016 and estimated ~28,000 and two weeks to do the work described above, and advised us to reach out to an abatement company to remove our old gravity furnace, as that was the first step and Fair & Square wouldn't be able to do any work until that was removed. We had that taken care of within a few business days, and the project manager from Fair & Square still didn't have work started for several more days after that. He said we had moved too quickly to have the furnace removed, even though he indicated that without the removal, he couldn't start anything. This was in late October/early November, and we had a furnace company lined up to come in and put in a furnace after Fair & Square completed their two weeks of work. However, the project manager delayed and delayed and delayed again, telling us that the concrete subcontractor he needed was not available, that they were busy, and finally that they were actually a family member of his so he really wanted to make sure they got to do the job. So for weeks, we had - a dirt floor in our basement - a hole in our foundation large enough for an egress window, covered only by a sheet of plywood, because they wanted to make it easier for the concrete contractor to pour through the hole rather than through an installed window - no ability to do laundry in our own home because the project manager's crew had to move the washer/dryer, of course - so they hung it from the floor joists above, a move that when mentioned to other contractors, elicits responses like "you're joking" or speechless disbelief, because it is NOT good or common practice - a car-sized pile of concrete chunks and dust in the street in front of our house, which meant when the snow plow came around, we (and our neighbors) ended up with concrete sludge melting into our grass - no heat in our Minnesota home in November and December other than that we generated with space heaters, causing exorbitant electric bills and concern for burst pipes since it was difficult to keep the basement warm with only space heaters (especially given the plywood window covering) Finally, after weeks of trying to get our project manager to move things along, reaching out to the owner, Mike, and working with Fair & Square's customer service manager, we were able to get some traction by telling the customer service manager we didn't feel like we had any more option but to involve a third party. Within a day, we heard back from Mike, who came by and told us he'd actually recently fired the project manager assigned to us because he was "a bad hire". Mike had the contractors finish everything up, but we later found out that the concrete was poured badly (no rebar or reinforcement), AND to top it off, they actually REDUCED the amount of ceiling height we had in the basement, rather than adding to it. By the day after Christmas Day (an 8-week timeline for what was sold to us as a 2-week job),the concrete was finally dry, so we were able to have our furnace company (who were VERY patient with everything) come out and do the install of our new HVAC system, on top of the substandard concrete floor, so at least we would have real heat for the Minnesota winter. Mike came and met with us after the holidays, and told us what he would like most in order to make things right, would be to do the job right, to bring one of his experienced project managers in to get the job done quickly and done well. He mentioned we might need a curb, which we said would be fine. His project manager said that it would be better to wait for the weather to warm up a bit, so we agreed to start in March. Along the way, the project manager tried to convince us that we should just have our ducting raised up (which of course also means widened, since you can't just push it further up into the ceiling; it's about total airflow), but that was unsatisfactory since we still would have had to apply for an exception from the city in order to have the ceiling height be acceptable for legal finishing, and have extremely low and wide ceilings in half of our basement to accommodate the needed width for the ducting. They also sent a crew out to remove a 8-ft by 8-ft pile of sand that they had lumped onto our concrete patio from digging out the basement the first time, and they ran a heater under a tarp for a few days, trying to get the sand to thaw out. They ended up jackhammering the sand off the patio, which of course damaged the patio, leaving nicks 1/8-1/4-inch deep across the patio surface. Ultimately, they started the second time when they said they would, but then were surprised to find that they would need an engineer to come out and make plans for a curb. Even though we had talked about the fact that there was only an inch or two of foundation underneath what was visible...meaning that digging down three inches would put us below the foundation. So what were we to do? Call off the project and sue them for our money back while trying to find a new contractor to complete the work? Or agree to the additional cost for engineering and the curb itself, so we could keep moving and just have our basement and house and lives back? We opted to continue, unhappily. They claim the curb is the reason that a 2-week project took 6 weeks (at least it wasn't 8 weeks like the first time) but they were calling us and asking for payment of the "rest of our original balance plus the additional work order" when we still had concrete spills dried on a doorframe, a large chunk taken out of a wooden stairstep leading into our basement, some kind of refinisher drying on our damaged patio (instead of a replacement of the poured patio), debris in the contractors' bagsters on our property, uncaulked trim around the new egress windows, and damage on one of the egress windows from their comings and goings throughout the project. They wanted us to pay them, before they had truly completed everything - last I checked, leaving my property in at least as good of condition as it was before the project started is a big part of accountability and quality. We appreciate that they wanted to "do it right" the second time, but they didn't - a repeat of their first attempt at the project in spite of the experienced project manager and understanding that the amount of time spent thus far was way past ridiculous. We are finally done, as of the beginning of May, for a 2-week job that we signed the contract for in late October. We absolutely CANNOT recommend them for anything other than basic quality of work - but even that we hesitate to do, because it certainly felt like they were going to ask us to pay the final balance and cash our check without finishing the little details like fixing a window they broke and ensuring all their construction debris was removed.

Upon purchasing my home I decided to completely renovate the interior prior to moving in. I worked with Fair & Square Remodeling to update the kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom and office to meet my family’s needs. A renovation of this kind takes time but they kept the work on track and it was completed within a week of the timeframe they initially gave me. I felt they were fair and easy to work with. Beth was very involved ensuring that things came together the way we discussed during the design phase. I would recommend them to anyone needing to do a sizable renovation.

We are very satisfied with the 2nd story master bedroom and bathroom addition that Fair & Square did for us. We’d planned for a long time to build out a bedroom suite so it fun to work with this group to pull it all together. They were full of great ideas to make it the perfect space. They paid attention to the smallest details and we always knew what to expect next. They kept the project on budget and we couldn’t be more thrilled with how it turned out.

Our kitchen addition project with Fair and Square Remodeling went well. The design process was enjoyable and with some adjustments through the design process they put together a beautiful plan for the addition. The team was efficient, communicated well, and were quick to share their ideas to ensure we would be satisfied with the kitchen. Their contactors were friendly, professional and experienced.

I ultimately chose Fair & Square for my kitchen remodel because of thier experience and overall it was a good choice. It is a decent sized kitchen but they listened to the budget I wanted to stay within and came up with some very unique ideas that stayed within the cost I had in mind. The design process was truly an enjoyable one. Jesse kept me in the loop through every step of the build. I really felt like they had my back on this project and my best interest in mind.

I used Fair & Sqaure to finish out the basement on my home. The original builder had only roughed in the basement and plumbing when the home was build a couple of years ago so wiring and all the framing was needed. I wasn't thrilled with the layout that were in the builders original plans so I met with the designer from Fair & Square to see how the existing roughed in plumbing could be modified to include a full bathroom rather than the 3/4 bath and to add a bar area. They came up with a good plan that didn't require major modifications and included the things I was looking for. They also had good suggestions on layout for the family room and bedroom that really worked with the walk out and how we planned to use it. Through the construction project our project manager kept us up to date on progress and what to expect. Everyone who worked on the project was sensitive to the fact that we were living in the home as they were completing it and tried hard not to be disruptive to our family life.

Honestly I was excited to work with this company. They seemed very open to my needs and provided great suggestions. Their team was top notch. They are getting a 1 because of their timelines. I am now two months over the estimated two week timeline. I have lost money due to the fact it's a rental property. I have been given multiple completion dates that haven't been hit. Frustrating.

Fair & Square did a great job w/ our bathroom remodel.  They really made sure we knew what was going on & very well managed.  They helped make the remodeling process stress free.  Beth was very helpful in giving us ideas about what would work for our space.  We would definitely use them for other projects.

I hired this company because they are pet-friendly and they have a good reputation of hiring women in the trades. <br /> I specifically used them for a home that I manage as rental. They were extremely considerate to my renter and were accurate in the times that they needed to be in and out of the house. They communicated thoroughly with both the renter and myself. As I mentioned before, they are super pet-friendly. My tenant has multiple pets and they were able to work out a pet safety plan before a worker even entered the home. They told me in advance the exact dollar amount of the work I needed and they delivered it! <br /> I recently found out that they are now offering handyman services and as a landlord this is also a really good fit just because of their ability to communicate with both the landlord and the tenant so effectively. <br /> <br /> <br />

I hired Fair and Square Remodeling to transform an existing storage room with a terrible layout into my new office and a study area. I really appreciated their expertise, I think it really helped to avoid potential issues and create a very useful space. The design they suggested added windows and really transformed a useless space into something that works well for me. The work they did included running new electric so that it would function well as an office, replacing the existing flooring and painting. Their transparency was also very appreciated. I always knew what was happening and if a problem arose, not only did they keep me informed but came to me with reasonable solutions.

When it came time to finish the basement in our new house we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted and Fair and Square helped make it happen. We rely on my mom for childcare, which means she is often staying with us during the week. I wanted a place where she could have some privacy in her own time so we decided to finish the basement to give her a private bathroom and kitchen area. I was kind of dreading the construction process but it turn out to be kind of fun. The bathroom was pretty straightforward, with vinyl floors, a vanity and shower. The kitchenette included quartz tops and is perfect for both my mom and any future entertaining we will do. The carpet keeps the space warm and it looks beautiful. The design they recommended really works well for us. The communication was better than I had hoped for and they were pretty transparent with everything that was happening in my home. I’d definitely give them an A on this project.

I knew when I purchased my condo last year that I would be refinishing the bathroom. This was my first experience remodeling but Cathy was so helpful! She showed me three types of bathroom projects, I chose the one that best fit my budget and she took me through all of my options at that price point. She took the time to really explain things to me and educate me so that I could make the best choices possible. The newly installed floors, vanity, tub surround and fixtures were exactly what was needed to bring that bathroom up to date with the rest of the condo. <br />

We really enjoyed working with fair and square to finish our basement. Their whole team was great and a lot of fun to deal with. They kept us up to date on progress and we always knew what to expect next. The space turned out great and the design makes such good use of the entire basement. The bathroom was finished with a tile floor, sink with a custom vanity and toilet and they even managed to design it to fit a full tub like I had hoped. My husband is a huge craft beer fan and was really psyched about the small bar area with a stone counter. I worried initially that the area would be cold as basements can sometimes be but they made sure it was insulated well and the carpeted floors ensure it is a warm relaxing place to hang out. We love to entertain and this is a place we love to share with our friends.