I generally do not write reviews for services I’ve contracted. Most interactions I have with contractors are positive, they perform the job requested for the money agreed upon. It’s a simple relationship. For me to take the time to write a review, would mean that a contractor went above and beyond what was requested and deservedly earned recognition. Or as is the case here, a contractor was so blatantly disrespectful, untrustworthy and frankly incompetent, that it would not be right for me to ignore an opportunity to warn others. So, for the sake of transparency, accuracy and indisputable truth, I want to provide the details of my interactions with Brian Horton of Snow Country Roofing. I wish I could write this with brevity in mind, but unfortunately there were too many issues and concerns to allow this contractor off the hook with a short generic review. To start, I think it is important to cover all bases as they pertain to Brian Horton. We contracted him through his Shelburne, VT “based” Snow Country Roofing business. However, he goes by many names. A quick open corporate search ties himself, his wife, his son, his business partner (Tonya Prive) and a family trust to the following operations: - Snow Country Roofing Inc - Sierra Roofing LLC - Under Cover Roofing Labor Inc - Champlain Roofing LLC - Pro Claims Inc - American Empire General Contracting - Champlain Organic Growers Assoc. - W, Companies Inc. How these organizations are all tied to one another, I’m not sure. I can’t positively say which are active, which are not. But I do know for a fact that Brian Horton used at least two different names while on our job site. I think it’s important to have these facts and acknowledge that it does not seem normal to have so many layers. I will also say that none of the addresses provided are actual physical business addresses. Snow Country is listed as 145 Pine Haven Shores, Suite 111 Shelburne, VT 05482. This is not the address to their business; it is a virtual office. There is no physical location, because there is no physical business. Many of the above companies share these virtual office addresses, with most having their agent addresses being 131 Church St, Suite 207 Burlington, VT 05401. When dealing with Brian Horton, nothing is as it seems. Snow Country Roofing provided us an estimate on 8/12/2020. That contract was signed by both Snow Country and us on 9/28/2020. Because of their previously scheduled work, we were put on the schedule for a mid-November start date. Everything was good. They seemed, organized, professional and capable of handling a large, $54,000, standing seam roof job. The November date came and went with no communication from anyone associated with Snow Country. When we were finally able to make contact, we were told that material delays, weather, etc. had backed them up on jobs scheduled before us and they would need to push us to December. That was fine. The December date came and went, nothing. The next date, nothing. And so on. Phone calls went unanswered, text messages sent with no response. The biggest issue we had, was not the rescheduling, we understood delays, it was the lack of communication, and frankly the attitude we received when we asked for it. Tonya Prive (Brian’s partner) was especially unprofessional and unpleasant. The only communication we received for months was their request for a second installment to be paid. But ask them for a status or plan and it was pulling teeth. It was around this time that more issues began to pop up. We were now in January, five months since they first provide us their estimate, and Brian began hitting us with issues. First it was a large skylight we had asked to have replaced. Snow Country had looked at it several times, both the sales rep and Brian himself. We were quoted an amount on the estimate for replacement. Now Brian was telling us that it was a significant job, not really a skylight but a custom window and that the cost would be far greater than what was quoted. We argued and he agreed to replace the window for the originally stated estimate (eventually we decided to not replace it at all). Next it was the garage. A large garage, I would estimate close to a 1/3 of the total project. Tonya called and said there was a mistake, and the garage was never accounted for in the estimate, the sales rep missed it. The cost would significantly rise. Naturally we were upset. Not sure how a professional roofing company could make an error this significant. I spoke with Brian, visibly upset, he assured me that he saw the garage in the rep’s notes, and it was Tonya’s mistake when completing the estimate. He told us not to worry that they would eat the cost of what he would continually call our “free $10,000 roof”. It wasn’t, in the end he took the estimated amount for the skylight replacement that was no longer happening and reallocated it to help cover a portion of the garage cost. These mishaps began piling up. While all of this was happening, dates continued to be missed. It became clear that Brian had no crew himself, every bit of work was being sub-contracted out. Some of the sub-contractors were even further sub-contracting the job, creating a confusing web of questionable contractors. Weeks would go by, roof stripped, metal laying all over the yard, not a single person working. Excuse after excuse being given by Brian. First it was the crew from Texas and New Hampshire that stripped the roof in January. They were quick and efficient once they finally started and showed us progress. It wasn’t until a couple weeks later that we realized they were so efficient because they weren’t fully stripping the roof. They cleared the cedar shingles and then left all the nails. Brian acknowledged this. More weeks went by. I continued to pester Brian with phones calls and texts, asking why on a sunny blue-sky day, there was no one working my roof. Weather was always the reason. He had originally told us the only thing that prevented his crews from working was extreme cold, understandable. But now I was standing out in the sun with mild temperatures being told it was wind, rain, snow. He needs a string of perfect days in order to start, any hint of impending snow meant more delays. All were lies, the real reason as he stated in recorded conversations, was that he had no crew and was having difficulty finding one. He had an excuse for everything, every time. Not once an apology. When we finally got a crew on site, the real circus began. Brian subcontracted our job to a young man from Albany, NY whose mother drove him from Albany to Vermont each day. Naturally this kid did not have a crew himself, so he further subcontracted the job to another company from New Hampshire. The owner of the New Hampshire company hired a “crew” of 3 guys and a girlfriend from Vermont to perform the work. Luckily this was the crew that pointed out all the quality issue from the roof stripping. When I brought these issues to Brian, he then sent an unhappy text to his guy from Albany, because that young man then sent a text to his subcontractor from New Hampshire saying “we got to speed this up my guy. I got the homeowner furious. Let’s speed it up, f#ck the quality”. That text message was presented to me. Brian was brought in, we told him we would not allow the man from Albany on our property and that the crew from New Hampshire would be performing the work. Long story short, the New Hampshire crew was also incapable of completing this job, and we were once again stuck because of the inadequate crews that Brian Horton had brought onto our job site. He liked to point out that none of the issues were his fault, they were a result of the sub-contractor’s poor work, ignoring the fact that he brought all these people to us, representing his company and thus being his responsibility. Brian came back to us, with a revised plan to fix the current quality issues and then complete the roof. Money was worked out to keep the cost around the originally agreed upon price. Since we were trapped with a house with no roof and no available outside contractors, we had Brian proce