JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Customers who contracted with Waterpools Jacksonville tell the News4JAX I-TEAM they’re dealing with unfinished projects and poor workmanship. The owner of the company says it’s all because of a recent hospitalization -- the same story he gave us 10-years-ago.
Dirk Woods is one of the customers who told us he signed a contract with Waterpools Jacksonville in August of last year. His pool build is far from complete, missing a cascading fountain and deck that’s already been paid for.
The builder promised Woods to have the pool finished in “a few weeks.”
“Allowing for weather and whatnot, probably a reasonable time of completion -- late October, early November,” Woods said. But, after four months, Dirk’s decided enough was enough and found new contractors to come finish the job.
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We asked him how much that move cost him. “$32,000 on top of the initial $49,000,” Woods said. Woods is essentially paying twice for his pool.
When things started to go wrong, Woods did a google search and found a News4JAX 2014 article, which is about George Vink. The report says he had not finished pool jobs he had been paid for. Vink told us at the time he had been sick and had brain surgery at the Mayo Clinic, that was why he was behind on his jobs. Vink now owns Waterpools Jacksonville.
“We probably wouldn’t be here if I would have seen that 2014 story,” Woods said.
The I-TEAM spoke with Vink by phone. He said he had been hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic since December with a MRSA infection. He said he feels like he’s honoring his contracts, and told us Dirk is “on his list” of pools to finish.
“No phone calls, some text that he’s been in the hospital and he’s in failing health and, you know, it’s just one health issue after another,” Woods said.
Per Florida law, “a project may be presumed abandoned after 90 days if the contractor terminates the project without just cause or without proper notification to the owner, including the reason for termination, or fails to perform work without just cause for 90 consecutive days.”
“We are at the point where there’s no other recourse, you know, I’m not the kind of person that can eat a $49,000 loss. So we have to recover something,” Woods said. “Yeah, he did not live up to his end of the bargain whatsoever.”