A Lorain County home-improvement company is accused of pocketing roughly $140,000 from nine customers while leaving their roofs, siding and gutters unfinished or poorly installed. Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson's office filed a lawsuit against Journey Home Restoration and its owner, Jason Kaczur, in Lorain County Common Pleas Court this past Tuesday, accusing the pair of repeatedly violating state consumer protection law.
Journey Home Restoration operated out of Lorain, offering residential roof, siding and gutter replacements, according to the lawsuit as reported by Cleveland.com. The company accepted about $140,000 from nine customers for roofing, siding and gutter projects that the lawsuit says were never completed, as EIN Presswire reported. One account from cleveland19.com frames it as the company either failing to provide promised services or performing subpar work, while a headline from The Chronicle-Telegram characterized the allegations more bluntly as taking the money and doing no work at all — the lawsuit itself allegedly spans both unfinished jobs and shoddy ones.
Customers Left Waiting Months, Lawsuit Alleges
According to the lawsuit, Journey Home Restoration failed to provide contracted goods and services within eight weeks of accepting customer payments. When projects stalled, the company allegedly did not issue full refunds, notify customers of delays, or offer comparable services of equal or greater value. In one case described in the filing, the company allegedly abandoned a roofing project outright without finishing the work or returning the customer's money.
The lawsuit also alleges that Journey Home Restoration failed to honor a 10-year workmanship warranty after a roof the company replaced began leaking less than three years later. Jason Kaczur is separately accused of soliciting customers through church congregations, promising savings on church roof repairs, according to the filing.
TV Appearances and a Trust Pitch
Journey Home Restoration and Kaczur appeared on local television programs promoting the company's home-improvement work and community involvement, according to the attorney general's office, per the same EIN Presswire account. Wilson pointed to that trust directly in his public statement on the case. “When Ohioans pay for contractors to repair their homes, they trust those contractors to follow through,” Wilson said, according to Cleveland.com and EIN Presswire.
The lawsuit alleges that Journey Home Restoration and Kaczur violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act, which covers consumer transactions involving goods or services purchased primarily for personal, family or household use, as defined under Ohio Revised Code Section 1345.01. Separate state law defines home construction services as covering the repair, improvement, remodeling or renovation of an existing residential structure, under Section 4722.01.
What the Lawsuit Is Asking For
The lawsuit seeks financial relief and damages on behalf of the nine affected consumers, and it asks the court to bar Journey Home Restoration and Kaczur from engaging in Ohio consumer transactions until they meet their financial obligations under the case. It also seeks civil penalties of up to $25,000 for each violation found by the court. Under Ohio's consumer-protection statute, a court can impose a civil penalty of up to $25,000 in specified circumstances involving practices previously declared unfair, deceptive, or unconscionable, per Section 1345.07, while a separate home-improvement provision allows penalties of up to $5,000 per violation against a seller or broker, according to Section 1334.08.
Journey Home Restoration registered with the state of Ohio in November 2020, according to the lawsuit, and the filing states the company is no longer operating or entering into home-improvement contracts. Court records do not list attorneys for either Journey Home Restoration or Kaczur.
Not an Isolated Complaint in Ohio
The case adds to a string of recent actions from Wilson's office against Ohio home-improvement contractors. A separate lawsuit involves five consumers who reported more than $60,000 in combined losses to The Metal Roof Company in central Ohio, according to the EIN Presswire report. Wilson's office has also pursued a southwestern Ohio contractor over allegedly incomplete work, as noted by Insurance Journal, and a Cincinnati-area case against Crown Pointe Remodeling and owner Quincy Barrett over alleged unfinished and shoddy work, as reported by Local 12.
