BELFOR Property Restoration

Mar 30th, 2024

Be aware! A fire occured at an adjoining property on 09/27/2022 resulting in damage to my condo. Due to this event, I had to file a claim as the property was inhabitable (claim filed with my home owners insurance on 09/28/2022). My property was never apart of the fire investigation and I was told to proceed with my home owners insurance who would then suborgate, by the fire marshall the day of and again on 11/15/2022 when both insurance companies and the county came out to view the properties. Despite this fact, Belfor is still trying to push a narative that they are waiting for a fire report (which the County Permits office has comfirmed does not exist). Regardless of all of this the HOA intervened saying I had to use their hired restoration team (Belfor Restoration). This coming after the HOA manager gave a written consent to proceed with my own insurance team in the essence of time. Nonetheless, I obliged for structural repairs as the HOA is responsible for the condo structure while I'm responsible for the interior. The HOA hired attorney, even provided written consent that I had the right to choose my own restoration team. Still I aimed to keep the peace. After working with the Belfor Team to get them involved so the wall on my side can be rebuilt, I find out they have done no work other than create drawings to date. They've been telling me that they are waiting for permits to be approved before they begin work for the last almost 2 months. I have no idea what they've been doing since September 27th. An instinct told me to call the county permit office myself to investigate what the hold up was. To my surprise they informed me that no permits have been filed (I have audio recording) and it wouldn't take but a few days to get them approved and have am inspectior come out post restore for a case like this. Meanwhile, my ALE (housing allowance) is running out and my hired restoration team cannot finish my interior while Belfor is stone walling for whatever reason. One must assume there is some kind of financial gain. Now I'm forced to retain an attorney to issue a demand letter and prepare for a potential lawsuit against Belfor and the HOA as I no longer want and definitely do not need their assistance. I was harassed into working with this company only to receive gaslighting and empty assurances. Luckily, I was smart and organized enough to keep all of the correspondences as proof of what I am owed. Save yourself the trouble and hire a restoration team that actually cares about people.
Dec 28th, 2022

Apr 21st, 2022

Jan 12th, 2022

Background: Belfor is the company Fairfax County Government uses as a 3rd party vendor for water damage restoration. If you ever have sewer water damage to your home, this is the company Fairfax contracts with to provide you the service. WARNING: If you don't use Belfor, the county will only reimburse you the costs Belfor would've charged. The county claims it's in their documentation that they cover the costs whether or not they accept liability, but this isn't true. It's written nowhere in the packet they give you on the date of your incident.Our sewer water damage happened on 11.9.2021.The issue: Belfor NEVER contacted my husband and I throughout our 4 month process of waiting for the county to accept liability and offer us a settlement amount for damage. Our county adjuster gave me the name of the company and said numerous times "Belfor has a large project and that's causing delays" as to why Belfor didn't provide them with a timely estimate of our renovation costs and damage estimates. The company we used for water mitigation sent them detailed pictures of the water damage and clean up process, but Belfor still couldn't process the estimate in a timely fashion. I called the front desk of Belfor and got the name of the man who is responsible for Fairfax County's cases (starts with an S, I think) and he wouldn't even tell me if they needed to come to our home as part of the estimate to see the damage. So my husband and I delayed the renovation work for months, to be safe, because we didn't know if they needed to lay eyes on our home. After that I never spoke with anyone from Belfor unless I called them, because remember they had another big project the county claimed they were working on.Fast forward: It's March 2022 and the county FINALLY offers us a settlement amount. My husband and I are going back and forth about the amount and look at what the county rep says:""It also did not take a month for Belfor to reach out regarding the inspection and none of the reconstruction started when Belfor arrived on site. I am not sure why they were turned away and not allow(ed) access to you(r) home for inspection even if you had already agreed to go with a different contractor as this would have assisted in the evaluation process".Belfor lied to the county and said we denied them access to our home, which is dumb because we wanted them to come to see how much of a mess it was and how destroyed our lives had become. We hadn't even done any work on our home when I last spoke to Belfor. Just a bunch of nonsensical, ridiculous, and inflammatory lies. I'm disgusted by them and their lack of care for the customer, because we were a Fairfax county resident, which meant they would be receiving our business through them. Lastly, this was a horrible lie because it affected the chance of us hiring them for the renovation work.DO BETTER BELFOR!
Mar 14th, 2022