State: Make sure your contractor’s on the level

Relying solely on a dated referral from a good friend isn't the best bet when choosing a home improvement contractor.

Newton newlyweds Corrin Arone and her husband found out the hard way when they hired a Watertown man to upgrade their kitchen and convert an unfinished basement into a family room and full bath — and wound up about $40,000 in the hole in the end.

The Arones saw the contractor's work at their friend's home, got a low quote and promise of an aggressive turnaround, but failed to investigate the contractor via the Better Business Bureau or check his registration and complaint history with the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.

"We were young and naive and had never gone through remodeling before," Arone, 31, said yesterday at an event highlighting the top consumer issues of 2012. Home improvement contractors ranked No. 4.

By the time the couple fired the contractor from the unfinished job, they'd already paid him 80 percent of the project price. That should have been a red flag, Arone conceded.

Problems with the work included gaps between the crown molding above kitchen cabinets that the contractor claimed could be "blended in" with insulation and spackle, baseboards not flush with the walls, and live wires buried in the ceiling.

"It was very elementary stuff," Arone said. "They didn't even use levels to make sure the floors ... or the ceilings were level."

The Arones went through the state's arbitration program and recovered a maximum-allowable $10,000 toward a $50,000 loss from the Home Improvement Contractor Guaranty Fund.

"The help that the state presented us, in the end, gave us justice," Arone said.

The Office of Consumer Affairs assumed oversight of home improvement contractors two years ago from the Executive Office of Public Safety and has cut a backlog of 1,200 complaints to nearly zero, said Undersecretary Barbara Anthony.

"It's very helpful to consumers," Anthony said. "It also keeps the industry on its toes. It's not going to take two years for claims to go through. It takes a few months."

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