4 years after Tubbs fire, Wikiup area family is battling its Santa Rosa contractor again

Four years after the Tubbs fire leveled their house just north of Mark West Springs Road — and 28 months after they signed with a Santa Rosa builder to replace it — the Ghigliazza family still hasn’t moved back home.

Instead, Angela and John Ghigliazza, along with their four sons, have spent the past four years living in Rio Nido, in a pair of cramped vacation cabins owned by her parents.

And while the family had hoped to be in their new home by Christmas, that has become a long shot.

Plagued by delays, work on the house ground to a complete stop in May, as relations curdled between builder and client.

The Ghigliazzas were one of at least 14 customers of American Pacific Builders, all Tubbs fire survivors, to experience significant problems with the contractor, as chronicled by The Press Democrat in July.

The couple essentially fired APB Aug. 24 by filing a cessation of work order, and they hired a new contractor.

APB fired back on Sept. 17, filing a mechanics lien claiming the Ghigliazzas owe the company $247,979.80.

A lien is a legal document reserving someone’s right to seek compensation if they haven’t been paid for their work. Liens provide important leverage to stiffed contractors and subcontractors.

The Ghigliazzas contend the lien filed by APB is groundless and erroneous.

“We don’t owe them anything,” said Angela. The couple believe APB and its owner, Steve Bates, took that step in retaliation for being fired.

The most immediate problem posed by the lien, for the Ghigliazzas, is that it shut off access to the construction loan that had been extended to them by Exchange Bank.

To keep the project going, they’ve been forced to borrow from Angela’s parents, and sold stock and other investments intended for later in their lives.

Among the terms of the loan: before Exchange Bank cut APB a check, a third-party inspector would first verify the percentage of work completed on the project. Bates signed an addendum to his company’s contract with the Ghigliazzas on Oct. 10, 2019, agreeing to those terms.

But in July 2021, APB informed the Ghigliazzas that, even though the job wasn’t yet 90% complete, it needed 100% payment or construction would halt. The builder was “asking for $220,000 for work that hasn’t been completed,” said John.

The following month, the Ghigliazzas fired APB, which placed the lien on their property 3½ weeks later.

“Anybody can screw with you and put a lien on your property,” said Angela. “You don’t even need documentation. But we need documentation and legal fees to get the lien lifted.”

Ever since the lien was filed, the couple has asked APB to provide them with invoices and other documentation that might explain how the contractor arrived at that $247,000-plus figure.

APB has been unable or unwilling to provide that documentation. Bates did not reply to a text or email asking for clarification. Nor did David Leonard, an attorney representing APB, directly answer the question Tuesday during a 10-minute interview.

Leonard sought to blame the Ghigliazzas for APB’s inability to itemize or account for the amount of the lien it had placed on their property. The Ghigliazzas, he complained, have “given us some accounting, they haven’t given us any accounting from the lender, and that’s what I’ve asked for,” he said.

“What I’m saying, did the owners have to make a separate payment application to Exchange Bank? How does that process work, what do they need for purposes of paying and do they pay the owners directly, or do they pay APB?”

Despite being repeatedly asked, Leonard would not or could not explain how APB came up with the $247,979.80 figure.

“It’s just garbage,” is how John Ghigliazza responded, upon hearing a recounting of the lawyer’s reasoning. “A business should have all the invoices they submitted and keep track of everything that’s been paid. They shouldn’t need have to pull anything from the bank.

“That’s on APB.”

He regards the lien, and the company’s nearly two-month refusal to explain how it arrived at that quarter-million-dollar figure, as “a stall tactic. They keep stretching this out, kicking the can down the road.

“I’m just floored that a company can’t explain how it arrived a number they believe they are owed,” he marveled. “I mean, you cannot make this s--- up.”

The Ghigliazzas are among at least six APB clients and subcontractors to file complaints against the company with the Contractors State License Board, which polices the construction industry in California.

Shortly after the Ghigliazzas fired APB, they were visited by an inspector from that board.

Joyia Emard, public affairs manager for the licensing board, said in an email Wednesday that it “has received some complaints about this contractor” — APB — “and is currently looking into them.”

Emard left open the possibility that the board could send an “an industry expert to inspect the complaint items” cited by the homeowner, “to determine if they were completed per contract and in accordance with industry trade standards.”

Should that expert conclude that work needs to be corrected or complete, “CSLB can issue a legal action with an order of correction to pay a consumer the cost to correct and complete if the amount exceeds the balance remaining on the contract.”

The pace of construction on the Ghigliazza home has picked up, even as the new contractor repeatedly found and corrected shoddy work by APB. But recent rains have made it impossible for workers to dig the trench for the pipe that will carry water to the house.

Earlier this week, Ghigliazza showed a reporter numerous examples of work by APB that appeared to fall short of “industry trade standards.”

“The one thing we were holding on to was that we might be home by Christmas,” said John, looking out Monday at deep puddles in his muddy backyard, “but that’s becoming more of a long shot with this rain.”

Standing over a muddy trench at the edge of his driveway, he pointed to a severed white pipe at the bottom of the ditch.

APB workers digging a trench to bring electricity to the house severed that white pipe, which was to carry rainwater away from the property.

“You can see how they trenched through the pipe, broke it, put the electrical (conduit) on top of it, then backfilled it, without saying anything,” he said.

That severed drainage pipe led to the formation of a small pond in the Ghigliazzas driveway, following rains on Oct. 22. Were it not for the quick action of the new contractor, who found the spot where the pipe had been cut, the water likely would’ve entered the garage in subsequent days, which brought much heavier downpours.

Inside the house, he pointed out places where APB had installed a washer and dryer and microwave in the granny unit; and the cooktop in the main kitchen — but failed to provide vents for those appliances. That means the new builder will have to cut holes through the ceiling and roof, and through granite, in the case of the main kitchen — to install those vents.

Another correction: workers had to disassemble, then reinstall the spiral staircase, which APB had put in backward.

Bates did not reply Thursday to requests for comment on these accounts of his company’s work.

When the house is finished, at long last, it will be grand. The main floor has a wide-open, welcoming feel. It was designed, said Ghigliazza, for crowds of friends to visit.

That won’t be happening this holiday season.

Does that spacious feeling makes the Rio Nido cabins seem all the smaller?

“You have no idea,” replied Ghigliazza, gazing glumly out on the mudscape of his front yard.

“I never thought we’d be out there for another winter.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.