Rosmel Pools

I signed a contract with Rosmel Pools on July 11, 2017. They cashed my deposit check the next business day. Prior to signing a contract, I spent several weeks meeting with the sales person to lay out specifically what I wanted in the pool and its location, and selecting plaster color, decking material and water line tiles. So all of the big decisions were made before I even signed the contract. I started seeing minor issues almost immediately. Initial sketch drawings did not properly reflect what I had communicated to the sales person. The second 'corrected' version still was not accurate. These were just preliminary drawings I was told, the designer would get everything correct. When I went to the office to sign the contract, there were several incorrect items in the scope. So those had to be manually changed and initialed. Two months later no work had commenced. I email the sales person and raise this as an issue. "we're still waiting", he replies. For what? He replies that the designer is backlogged. He promises to have completed drawings by the next day. When I do receive the engineering design, it's wrong. None of the corrections we made in the contract were in the design. He gets the drawings corrected and I provide approval on Sep 1. Sales person promises they will make up the lost time. Pretty much nothing happens after that. Fast forward to today. THREE MONTHS to the day after I signed a contract and they don't even have a permit to start construction. I contacted the permit office and learned the permit is on hold because they had not filed the proper paperwork. So we fired them. Based on their performance (or lack of) thus far, I had no confidence to believe that we wouldn't be here in three months with a big hole in the backyard (in an email the sales person told me 3-4 months start to finish). Of course they tried to save the deal. But both the sales person and the owner only had excuses (everyone's fault but theirs). They even tried to blame the City for the delays (the City didn't even get a permit application until 9/18). I'd have more respect for someone that would just own up to their mistake and say "hey, we screwed this up and here's how we're going to fix it". But nope, that didn't happen.