Florida AG: Naples firm duped consumers post Hurricane Ian out of at least $1M

Florida’s Office of the Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against a Naples construction company it alleges duped residents in several counties across the region and state following Hurricanes Ian and Milton.

According to the lawsuit filed Friday, Evolve Construction LLC, Evolve Construction & Restoration Inc. and six of its principals and managers began approaching homeowners following Ian in 2022. The lawsuit alleges the company then “locked them into legally deficient and unconscionable ‘contingency agreements,’ then took tens of thousands of dollars from them and from consumers’ insurance claim funds without completing the agreed upon work.”

Evolve is based in Naples, though its website shows offices across the country, several of which are local. The Attorney General’s office says Evolve Construction LLC, is a Florida limited liability company organized in 2021 that “lay dormant” until Sept. 30, 2022 — two days after Hurricane Ian.

Evolve Construction & Restoration Inc., is a Florida corporation formed in 2023.

The corporate defendants and the individual defendants operated as a common enterprise referred to as Evolve Enterprise, the AG's office says in the complaint.

As of Tuesday, the company had not responded to the lawsuit and it did not respond to an email request for comment for this story. Calls to the company’s Naples headquarters office and another headquarters office in Sherman Oaks, California, were answered by an automated system that after a long pause thanked the caller then automatically disconnected the line.

The lawsuit, the AG's office says, came about after it received complaints from more than 80 consumers, 60% of them from senior citizens, against the company.

These came from residents of Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Osceola, Volusia, St. Lucie, St. Johns and Broward Counties

Here, according to a copy of the complaint filed in Lee County and a statement issued by Attorney General James Uthmeier, is what happened:

Soon after Hurricane Ian ripped through the area four years ago, the complaint says, Evolve began soliciting consumers who were dealing with the after effects of the storm, this despite it not having a certified building contractor or certified roofing contractor authorized to work for it.

The company, the complaint says, “aggressively marketed and solicited desperate consumers,” then took money without doing the work.

The complaint says that in many of the cases residents had little bargaining power nor an understanding of terms and, given an immediate need to get repairs done and to mitigate damage from the storm, they felt pressured to sign.

The complaint alleges that to ease concerns, sale representatives told the residents that the contingency agreement was an applicatio,  not the contract. The actual contract would come later in an email.

The attorney general’s office goes on to say in the statement that Evolve did not provide an itemized cost of good and omitted cancellation language required by law. It also imposed an unlawful cancellation penalty, calling it “liquidated damages.”

When consumers tried to cancel or get refunded for work that went undone, Evolve is alleged to have refused.

In all, according to the statement, consumers allegedly paid the company more than $1 million for work they didn’t receive and that insurance payments ranged from $5,000 to $80,000 per property.

As for those who did get work done, it was only partially completed or of such poor quality that it failed inspection or caused additional property damage, the attorney general’s office says in the statement.

As for the consumers who tried to fight back, “The complaint alleges the defendants threatened to place liens on homes — and in some cases recorded liens, including for inaccurate amounts, and pursued foreclosure — even when no work was performed, and no materials were purchased,” the attorney general’s office says in the statement.

“Defendants also sent representatives to consumers’ homes to collect payments, leaving some consumers feeling physically threatened.”

(While the statement mentions Hurricane Milton, the complaint does not say anything about that storm.)