01/06/08

Lies to and cheats clients, doesn't know state law on construction, takes shortcuts in construction.

by nareshlakhanpal

We had a horrible experience with this building company and its principal, Ali Manteghi, in 2006-2007.

Axxium told us that it was buying the lot we wanted for a certain price and would sell it to us for the same price that they paid. In fact, they paid $50,000 less for the lot than they charged us. When we caught how they cheated us, they refused to give us the profit they made for flipping the land.

When we took Axxium's/Manteghi's testimony on this point and asked whether this is the way they treated their customers, whether they would like potential customers to know that this is how they did business, they refused to answer the questions.

In violation of our lot purchase contract, Axxium hasn't paid us the prorated property tax that they owed us for 2006 property taxes.

Axxium didn't know (or pretended not to know) the state law about registering houses under the Texas Residential Construction Code and misrepresented to the State when construction started when they finally registered the house they were building for us. They said that work began in June 2007, around the time they finally registered the house as required, but Axxium in fact began the work in April 2007.

Axxium was going to charge us nearly $200,000 for the foundation and related work on the house, but actually spent only $85,000 on the work.

Per our construction contract, Axxium was required to obtain various insurance coverage for the house construction before construction started, but failed to get all of the insurance despite our repeated requests that they do so.

When we asked Axxium/Manteghi how many houses the company sold in 2006, they answered just "one".

We stopped the construction when we discovered all the problems and misrepresentations. We're in litigation with them because they refused to talk about a reasonable settlement. Not great, but it's better than having a house that's badly built.

• Pros: None.
• Cons: Dishonest, poor construction.