ABR Engineers

HORRIBLE. Beware of this one as he tries to squeeze every nickel out of you with hidden costs.
My townhouse association hired Alfred Rafuson from ABR to draw up plans for remodeling various parts of the complex. Alfred was paid over six thousand dollars to draw up generic plans that can then be used when residents need work done on their units and require engineering plans for applying for city permits. We ended up needing to have our balcony rebuilt, and needed these plans. Little did we know, Alfred wanted to then charge us again to use the plans he had already been hired to draw up! This time he wanted one thousand dollars for each resident that wants to use these plans, when the work involved is extremely minimal. These are the hidden costs you can expect from ABR Engineers.
After speaking with a few neighbors that had similar work done (and in three cases the work was identical to the work being done on my unit), I found that he had charged inconsistent amounts, essentially whatever the other residents were able to bear, ranging from eight hundred to one thousand five hundred dollars. Alfred simply charges as much as he can because other firms would charge much more to draw up plans from scratch, and owners need the plans to get the work done and approved by the city.
We tried to negotiate with Alfred to lower his rate to the lowest rate we had heard from our neighbors, but he wouldn’t budge on our rate, even though it was for identical work that he has already done. I pressed to ask what work is involved in order to get the work done, and he admitted he just has to drive to the city to get the plans approved. The plans are already done, and that he just wants to be paid that much. Needless to say it left a sour taste in our mouths. In hindsight, our HOA should have set a constant rate in the original contract to specify a standard rate for each use of these engineering plans. In fact, our HOA is now considering hiring a new engineering firm to draw up brand new plans from scratch, just so that we have a locked-​in rate each time residents use them.