Our nightmare with Glenn Watson and his company Georgian Bay Homes
My wife and I were looking for a trustworthy contractor for about a year, from August 2021 to August 2022. Either no contractor gained our trust, or the prices were much too high.
Around March 2022, we got in touch with a person named Charlie Brown, who worked for Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations.
We found this company through the HCRAontario.ca website (https://obd.hcraontario.ca/profile/B48947), which referred to it as an officially licensed company in Midland. After extensive research, we believed that we should deal with a licensed company with HCRA and Tarion. Glenn Watson’s company was licensed with both.
Charlie Brown provided us with an estimate of CA$808,117.89, which was too expensive for us. This marked the end of communication with Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations for a period of 2 months.
Around July 2022, Glenn Watson, the owner, personally contacted us to say that he did not understand why his employee had provided such an expensive estimate. He reviewed our file and said he could build our house for CA$761,500.55, including taxes.
We met with him several times to discuss the contract. It was crucial for my wife and me not to have any surprises with the prices. We knew there would be additional costs; however, we did not want any surprise invoices. We wanted to know in advance what work would be done and wanted to first discuss and approve any overcharge not included in the contract before the work is done.
My wife repeatedly asked, by email and in person, if we risked receiving surprise invoices of $20,000.00, to which we were assured that it had never happened, and we should not worry at all.
We even have an audio recording, made with Glenn Watson and Jonathon Morris’s consent, where they confirmed that any work not included in the contract and exceeding $500.00 would require our approval first.
He found my wife’s insistence on this point quite amusing.
This condition is part of his contract under clause 10. See below:
<<Please note that with any renovation project, unforeseen issues can arise. If any such issue should arise requiring a change order, more than $500, work may be stopped, and a “change order or estimate” will be agreed upon for any product and / or materials and labour charges that are required to complete the work.
Change orders under $500 will not require customer authorization to continue work, and a change order will be produced.>>
As time went on, we faced more and more pressure from his employee, Jonathon Morris, to sign the contract. These pressures came through phone calls and text messages.
Finally, on August 4, 2022, we signed a contract worth CA$761,500.55 with Glenn Watson and his company, Georgian Bay Homes. We provided a deposit with two certified checks totalling $224,617.67, as required by Glenn Watson for Georgian Bay Homes to start the work.
The promise to start the work in August was not fulfilled. The land clearing work began on September 6, 2022.
In October 2022, Glenn Watson informed us that they had encountered an unexpected water issue on the site and needed to have an analysis done by an engineering firm before continuing.
This issue was not unexpected; we had visited the site together several times, and we all knew there were water issues on the property. The land is officially designated as “Wet Land,” and Georgian Bay Homes and Glenn Watson were aware of it.
In any case, we were told that the work had to be stopped for the winter, but we should not worry because an engineer mandated by Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations confirmed that all the work had been done well, and we only needed to wait for the spring to continue. For some reasons, the excavation process should stop as soon as there is freezing temperature during the night.
Jonathon Morris reassured us repeatedly that everything was fine, the work was going well, and we should not worry. Again, that was in October 2022. We now have to wait for a long winter, knowing that Glenn Watson has our $224,617.67 deposit sitting in his bank account and hoping for the best.
OUR WORST FEAR HAPPENS!
After a long winter, in March 2023, we met with Glenn Watson and Jonathon Morris to discuss the continuation of the work.
Surprise! Glenn Watson informed us that we had an unexpected bill totalling $40,543.59. But that’s not all: the work had ALREADY been done without seeking our approval first!
If we didn’t pay the $40,543.59 immediately, they couldn’t continue building our house. Furthermore, we learned that there would be at least $50,000.00 more to pay for the back fill of the land.
We asked for explanations. He simply told us that the men who were working on the site to remove the trees and excavate the lot had presented him with a surprise bill. We asked him which company he had hired, and he replied: None, they are my own men!
So, to sum up: his own men presented him with surprise bills totalling $40,543.59 for work done without permission, and he asked us to pay, or he would not continue building our house. He did not make any other resolution offer.
We deemed this situation completely unacceptable. How can we trust a company that breaches a key clause of its own contract within the first 15 days of work and then wait a whole winter to inform us about it?
The next day, my wife and I informed him that we could no longer work with them. They had not respected a crucial clause of their own contract: asking us for permission before carrying out any work exceeding $500.00.
It is impossible for us to trust someone who behaves in this manner.
However, we made an offer:
We agreed to pay for all the work done so far, even though we disagreed and did not give our permission, under two conditions:
- They would refund our deposit within a few days.
- They would terminate the contract.
We even accepted the possibility of signing another contract and continuing to work with them for the construction of our house, except this time, Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations would carry out the work first, and we would pay afterwards.
Glenn Watson accepted. We returned home satisfied but anxious to get our deposit back. Two weeks later, still no news. We went to Georgian Bay Homes and Revelations’s offices, and Glenn Watson then told us that he absolutely needed to meet with his lawyer first. He did not know how to terminate a contract, and he needed legal advice to do so. This happened in March 2023.
We never received any updates after that meeting. I had to personally go to meet Glenn Watson at his office to ask him what he was waiting for to cancel the contract and give me back my money.
He replied that he didn’t know how to terminate a contract, as a situation like this never happened to him before, and he needed to consult his lawyer. We will see later that it appears he never wanted to terminate the contract. I was highly suspicious.
About 3 weeks later, since we had not received any news from Glenn Watson or his lawyer, we were forced to send a formal notice on April 25, 2023.
In the meantime, we contacted the engineering firm hired by Glenn Watson to perform a soil analysis AFTER the work had been done by Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations.
IT GETS WORSE!
The engineer in charge of the report, Mr. Darcy Heitzner, confirmed to us that the work had been poorly executed. Everything needs to be redone because the organic matter was not completely removed. Here is the report they made AFTER Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations worked on our lot and supposedly did everything perfectly.
Now read this last paragraph: REMOVING ANY EXISTING FILLING/OR DELETERIOUS MATERIAL (…) AND REPLACE IT WITH MATERIAL IN PROPERLY CONTROL UNDER THEIR SUPERVISION.
Therefore, all the fill brought to the site needs to be removed, and the area must be refilled with uncontaminated sand and stone.
This clearly means that the work that Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations did under the supervision of Glenn Watson and Jonathon Morris was not correctly done. Everything has to be redone. And it looks like they want us to pay for their mistake.
We also received an quote from a reputable local excavating company that has been in business for more than 65 years for redoing the work that was poorly done by Glenn Watson and Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations. It will cost CAD 111,305.00, including taxes, to redo everything. The person who gave me the quote immediately told us that there was something very wrong with the work that has been provided by Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations.
Between April 25, 2023, and now, we have communicated several times with Georgian Bay Homes and Renovation’s lawyer and Glenn Watson directly. We asked for a minimum resolution offer; otherwise, we would have no choice but to file a complaint with HCRA Ontario and initiate legal action.
It is now July 24, 2023. We have heard nothing from anyone. There is not even the beginning of a resolution offer from them, despite giving them the opportunity several times.
Even worse, today, we discovered that Glenn Watson closed the company 271270262, with which we signed the contract on October 3, 2022.
He is now operating under a new company with number 1000326919 since September 30, 2022.
We believe that Glenn Watson has no intention and never had the intention of refunding our deposit. The closure of the company with which we signed the contract seems to be an evidence of this.
We think that Glenn Watson simply wants to keep the $224,617.67 we left as a deposit because we trusted him. And we trusted him because he has a license with HCRA Ontario and Tarion. If this is indeed the case, this is called theft and fraud and he will be fully prosecuted.
We verified with a Tarion representative, and it appears that Glenn Watson did not renew his license with them, even though his website says otherwise: https://georgianbayhome.ca/
We strongly believe that Glenn Watson and his company, Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations, are not to be trusted and we wish to warn you before if you think of doing business with him.
If Glenn Watson had not had his company licensed with HCRA Ontario, we would never have trusted him and given a deposit of $224,617.67. Never. We have deposit an official complaint with HCRA Ontario and are working actively to get his building licence removed.
Glenn Watson has violated every rule in this HCRA document:
https://www.hcraontario.ca/11.%20HCRA%20Advisory%20-%20Price%20Escalations%20and%20Contract%20Terminations_March%2022,%202023.pdf
Please note that we have contacted at least one other client who did business with Glenn Watson for the construction of his house. They told us that he used exactly the same strategy with them. These people accepted to pay. They had no choice, they told us.
We will try to find other clients of his, and we are filing a lawsuit against him and his company, which may amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is in addition to the lawsuit concerning our personal case. If this is your case, please contact us.
We will update this page should there by any new development.
UPDATE AUGUST, 15, 2023: We finally received an email from their lawyer. An official settlement offer may be coming. We really hope to have this solved as soon as possible.
UPDATE AUGUST, 7, 2023: There has been a DMCA complaint filed by the secretary working for Georgian Bay Homes and Glenn Watson for unauthorized used of pictures. Again, instead of contacting us and try to resolve the issue, she wrote a bunch of nonsense to my hosting company to which I will reply here below.
Dear Siteground Support Team,
I trust this message finds you in good health. I’m writing to bring to your immediate attention
serious misconduct associated with the website “georgianbayhomesandrenovations.com“.
I find it quite ironical to see someone who works for a company that keep my $224,617.67 deposit without providing with the work nor communicating with me, accusing me of “misconduct”.
which is currently hosted on your platform. As a concerned citizen of the digital community, it is incumbent upon me to report harmful,unethical, and illegal activities transpiring online. I’ve identified the aforementioned website engaging in activities that not only contravene Siteground, Terms of Service but are also harmful and illegal. These actions include Phishing, Spamming, Intellectual Property Rights Infringement, unauthorized use of personal images, and a slanderous campaign against an individual.
The “concerned citizen” should maybe report her boss to the police for keeping my quarter of a million dollars and not doing the work he promised to do. Or maybe this isn’t concerning enough for her?
The site has been detected sending out deceptive phishing emails, an activity that manipulates innocent people into providing sensitive information under the guise of authentic services. This is a grave security concern and a clear violation of your terms.
Moreover, it is engaged in creating and disseminating unsolicited spam, creating annoyance and potential privacy infringement for the individuals who have unfortunately received these communications.
This is pure and simply 100% lies. And the secretary and Glenn Watson are not even ashamed. But in terms of manipulating innocent people, it looks like she knows exactly what she is talking about.
The website also infringes on Intellectual Property Rights by copying content from other sources without proper permissions or attribution. This is not just a violation of your policies but also potentially a breach of copyright laws. Furthermore, there has been unauthorized use of personal images. The website has been displaying pictures of an individual without their consent, an explicit violation of their privacy and personal rights.
Finally, the site has been running a slanderous campaign against an individual. The content in question is defamatory and could cause significant damage to the reputation and well-being of the individual targeted.
Here is the legal definition of defamation:
Definition. 298 (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.
I think that keeping $224,617.67 from my money without providing with the work is a lawful justification for wanting to warn anyone from doing business with Glenn Watson and his company Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations. If we would have read this type of warning, we would NEVER have done business with him in the first place and this terrible situation we are in would have been avoided.
In the light of the above, I sincerely hope that Siteground, known for its high ethical standards and adherence to fair practices, will conduct a thorough investigation into this matter. If these allegations are found to be true, I request you to suspend and delete the server hosting this website to prevent further abuses.
She doesn’t know Siteground but that is exactly how a manipulative person would express herself to obtain a favour.
It is of utmost importance that the Internet remains a place of trust, respect, and lawful activities.
What about making your own business, Georgian Bay Homes a place of trust, respect and lawful activities? That may be a good start.
I trust that Siteground shares this vision and will act accordingly. I am available for further correspondence and to provide any additional information you may require.
We are currently in a legal talk to resolve this claim again us on the website. At no time have we refused payment or talks with the website holder. There are multiple claims on the website that are unturn as I do the administrative work for the company.
Well that appears to be an unshameful lie. You know perfectly well that your boss doesn’t give me back my money. I have had a discussion right in front of you regarding this and you were so afraid that I had recorded the conversation. If you would have discussed with us and tried to find a solution, we wouldn’t be in this situation. We are reasonable people, my wife and I. By the way, still not offering a settlement offer 6 months after we presented you ours, is exactly the same as refusing to discuss.
It would be in the best interest for all parties to have the page removed as he is unlawfully using inaccurate information.
Again, instead of thinking “Hey, we need to solve the problem with these people, let’s call them and discuss about how we can settle this” Glenn Watson and her secretary at Georgian Bay Homes prefer trying to shut down this website and silence. I’ll let you decide why they behave that way.
Thank you for your swift attention to this matter.
Best Regards,
Melissa Marchand
Office Manager
Georgian Bay Homes and Renovations
3-349 Cranston Cres.
Midland, Ont
L4R 0B8
705-529-9021
www.georgianbayhome.ca
UPDATE AUGUST, 2, 2023: There has been a comment which I think comes directly from Glenn Watson who clumsily tried to point out what he referred as a “lie”. Funny enough, the lie he pointed out is not that he keeps our money without providing with the work nor offering us any resolution offer but rather that he still has his building licence. Which he still has indeed, for now. You can see the comment at the bottom of the main page.
UPDATE AUGUST, 2, 2023: Since this page has been up, the only development is that Glenn Watson tried to buy this domain name for the amount of $1125USD. Instead of giving us our money back, he tried to get this website deleted. He just didn’t know that his purchase offer would be redirected to us. He still has my $224,617.67 deposit and we still haven’t received any resolution offer from him. See the screenshots below.
