Lawsuits mount against Penticton building business, alleging $245K in unpaid bills

A Penticton-based construction company continues to see civil lawsuits mounting against it, with Okanagan businesses claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly unpaid bills.

The lawsuits were filed in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton throughout February and the beginning of March by TwinCon Enterprises, Legacy Garage Doors, D Man Contracting and Finish First Interiors, all targeting Jason Stutzke and his business, Okanagan Extreme Home Builders (OEHB).

The claims stem from alleged unpaid construction materials and labour completed.

Stutzke and his business had multiple claims filed against them in January for similar reasons.

TwinCon Enterprises filed a suit against Stutzke, which included naming the owners of the land of six properties they allegedly worked on, seeking money owed.

The lawsuits claim that previous agreements stipulated that TwinCon Enterprises would be supplying Stutzke with excavation materials and services, and would be invoiced for payment. In all cases, they allege Stutzke has refused or neglected to make payment, despite demands.

Under the provisions of the builder lien act to retain a holdback, TwinCon Enterprises has caused a claim of lien to be filed in the Kamloops Land Title Office for all six properties, which means the company would have the right to "keep possession of property belonging to another person until a debt owed by that person is discharged."

In total, TwinCon Enterprises is claiming they are owed roughly $189,000 from all six properties, plus potentially more due to contractual damages.

In the lawsuit filed by Finish First Interiors, they claim Stutzke and OEHB have a balance owing on an account for residential drywall and finishing work done in Penticton in December of 2022.

They claim that OEHB hired them to work on a building constructed on a property located at Lot 22, 2752 Hawthorn Drive in Penticton.

Finish First Interiors is seeking the balance owed for their completed work, which they say was invoiced at $20,509.50. They claim that OEHB paid $6548.25 towards total debt, leaving $14,042.25 owing to Finish First, which allegedly amounts to $15,011 including interest.

They also claim OEHB has been paid by the property owner for its work.

Legacy Garage Doors claims that they have been contracted multiple times by OEHB, completing 18 jobs over the past six years.

They filed a lawsuit against the company for an alleged six outstanding invoices for work completed, including supplying and installing overhead doors and motors on projects in Penticton.

“The last payment we received was on December 2, 2022. Legacy has time-stamped documentation showing effort to collect payment and has been patient with the owner, Jason Stutzke over that time,” their lawsuit reads.

“He cited an insurance settlement that he was waiting for, waiting on loan applications and selling a property in Mexico in order to clear his account. Unfortunately, we’re in a position to no longer be able to carry the balance owing and require full payment of the outstanding balance which is $11,593.78.”

Along with filing fees and administration labour on the civil claim, Legacy Garage Doors is seeking $12,085.23 from Stutzke.

Dylan Ashton Manastyrski, the owner of D Man Contracting, has filed a lawsuit against Stutzke and OEHB for two allegedly unpaid invoices, totalling more than $30,000.

They claim that they supplied the company with labour and materials to frame and build homes, completing hourly work with a labour crew as a part of a verbal agreement that was previously being honoured.

“[OEHB] arbitrarily started reducing payments and then ceased payments citing [D Man Contracting] would not be paid until the build was completed. The projects were only at framing stages,” they alleged.

Stutzke submitted a reply to the lawsuit filed by D Man Contracting, disputing the claimed amounts owed, due to alleged inspection failures, cost to repair work done by them and additional administration costs.

“[D Man Contracting] was unable to provide proper invoicing after repeated requests to do so,” Stutzke claims in the suit.

He alleges that a signed agreement between the two parties was not fulfilled by Manastyrski.

He also filed a counterclaim, alleging that OEHB has repeatedly asked for proper invoices from D Man Contracting and have not received them.

“[D Man Contracting] agreed and signed that lot 15 would be 100 per cent complete and signed OEHB prior to receiving final payment. Since then, project was left unfinished and OEHB had to hire new contractors to complete and fix work done by [D Man Contracting] resulting in our counterclaim of $5283.73.”

Stutzke claims that in total, their counterclaim amount against D Man Contracting is $18,395.61, but minus the two owed invoices, leaves them to collect $5283.73 in their suit.

Court records do not show evidence that Stutzke has filed replies to any of the other claims against him as of March 6.

At the beginning of February, Stutzke filed a civil claim against a Penticton businessman, Randal Browning, seeking alleged unpaid invoices from him totalling $154,777.08.

Stutzke alleges that the two of them entered into an agreement on March 15, 2022, for renovations on his property, with an initial flat fee of $500,000.

He claims that Browning provided some of the deposits and invoices payments, but not all issued by OEHB.

“During the course of providing product management services to the property, [OEHB] determined that the scope of work that it was being asked to complete by Browning would be worth $1.2 million, instead of the flat fee of $500,000 in the initial agreement, thus a new contract for project management services between [Browning], [OEHB] and [Stutzke] was entered into,” the claim reads.

Stutzke alleges that Browning agreed to pay costs plus 14 per cent for project management services, which included building a kitchen on the property along with other renovations and electrical work in a second agreement.

However, Stutzke claims that the second agreement, with all of these details, was “intentionally deleted by a disgruntled employee of [OEHB]”, who was a site manager for the project at the time after being let go from the company.

“Thus there is no record of the second agreement, but there is performance of this contract on the part of both [OEHB] and [Stutzke].”

He also claims that OEHB was fired by Browning prior to the installation of the kitchen at the property, alleging that a dispute arose from the disgruntled employee. Stuztke claims Browning also accused him of lying about installation dates for the kitchen and then refusing to pay further invoices or amounts owing on previous ones.

Stutzke is seeking the $154,777.08 owed from alleged unpaid invoices plus interest.

Stutzke did not respond to Castanet’s request for comment on the lawsuits.

None of the allegations in the lawsuits have been proven in court, and all named parties have a right to respond with countersuits should they choose to do so.