WINTER PARK, Fla. — A Winter Park woman claims a contractor did not get the permits and inspections he promised as part of constructing a seawall at her lakefront home.
Sandy Canfield says the wall was built improperly, and now she has to pay more money to get it built the right way.
She contacted WFTV Action 9’s Todd Ulrich to get to the bottom of the issue.
Canfield said she paid Aqua Marines owner Jeff Parker $7,000 to build the seawall in 2009. A year ago, the wall started failing. She discovered no permit was pulled for the project, and if it had been inspected, the wall would have flunked.
“I got a very shoddy constructed sea wall,’’ Canfield said.
The woman said the day she signed the contract, Parker appeared to call a Winter Park building department official to obtain a permit. She said he showed her a cellphone with the name “Tim Egan Lake Permits’’ – indicating that it was the person he had dialed. Parker then handed her the phone, she said, adding that she thought she was talking to a Winter Park inspector who approved the project.
According to Tim Egan, a Winter Park building supervisor, the phone call never happened.
Jeff Parker denied doing anything wrong at Canfield’s property or on any other jobs.
“That's not true. I mean, I've never had any issues with the city,’’ Parker said.
But Winter Park’s Egan told Ulrich he has had many problems with Parker not getting permits and inspections.
Parker said he did not pull a permit for Canfield’s project because he did not need one.
Just this year, Parker was found guilty of attempted worker’s compensation fraud for contracting without proper insurance.
Canfield had to hire another contractor to rebuild the wall and spent another $7,000.
“I don't want him doing that to anybody else,’’ she said.
Canfield asked Parker to cover part of the costs she faced to rebuild the seawall.
Parker told WFTV that he won't, and he insists he did nothing wrong.
WFTV
