A Middlesex County renovation company has been named in nearly 70, rather than exactly 70, lawsuits across Massachusetts, with most of those cases filed over the past six years and legal judgments against it now topping $700,000. Homeowners describe gutted properties, unpaid subcontractors, and a project in Melrose that left a couple without electricity or running water just as they needed to move out.
The company, Cutting Edge Homes, kept taking on renovation work even after a Massachusetts state agency suspended its home improvement contractor registration last summer for multiple violations, according to an investigation by NBC Boston. Reporter Ryan Kath found that the vast majority of the lawsuits against the Ashland-based firm and its owner, Sean Cutting, have piled up in just the last six years, and that roughly 40 subcontractors sued the company over unpaid work.
Jonathan and Myla Lococo hired Cutting Edge Homes for design and construction work on their Melrose home, and the project went sideways fast. “We started getting calls from subcontractors that weren't showing up because they hadn't been paid,” Jonathan said, according to the outlet's report. By August 2025, when the couple needed to leave their condominium, the property was gutted to the studs with no electricity or running water, and the Lococos estimate the ordeal has cost them about $100,000 while moving into their home a year later than planned.
A Trail of Judgments and Disputed Claims
The station's tally found more than $700,000 in legal judgments against Cutting Edge Homes, not counting 15 open lawsuits the company is actively disputing, with claims for damages in those cases totaling millions of dollars. Separately, 33 complaints were settled or voluntarily dismissed for undisclosed amounts, and the company was sued over a $300,000 loan it allegedly never repaid. Electrician Jeff Boyer took the company to small claims court and won a $7,400 judgment, according to the docket cited in the report.
Jonathan Lococo told the outlet that the alleged damages across all the cases total millions of dollars and that the contractor has not slowed down. Aaron and Ashley Roffel, who hired Cutting Edge Homes for an extensive renovation of their Newton home after moving in back in 2018, eventually ended their contract and hired a new company to finish the job after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars; Aaron Roffel estimates their financial loss exceeded $500,000.
A Sherborn homeowner made a similar allegation in her own lawsuit, claiming she paid nearly the full $2.5 million contract price while the project remained less than half complete; she too was awarded a $450,000 attachment on Cutting's Hopkinton property. Other accounts described in the report include a Westwood couple who said unpaid subcontractors placed three mechanic's liens on their property, and a Weymouth couple who said they lived in a camper in their front yard and then temporary housing after a home-addition deadline passed.
Suspended Registration Didn't Stop the Work
Massachusetts law prohibits contractors from performing home improvement work while their registration is suspended, and violations are subject to administrative sanctions under Section 18 and criminal prosecution under Section 19. Cutting Edge's home improvement contractor registration had reportedly been valid and unblemished for years before a suspension order tied to the Roffels' complaint took effect on June 12. A state investigator found violations including failure to perform a project and failure to pay for materials and services after receiving funds, and several homeowners — including the Roffels and the Lococos — filed complaints against the company's registration. A complaint tied to another Newton couple later extended that suspension until October 2027.
Despite the suspension, NBC10 surveillance reportedly showed construction continuing at Cutting Edge projects in Milton and Wellesley, and the company kept soliciting new clients on social media, with Sean Cutting telling followers the business was available to help.
Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 142A, Section 17, operating without a certificate of registration issued by the director is listed as a prohibited act.
The Pattens' Renovation
Lisa and Richard Patten hired Cutting Edge Homes to renovate their Wayland townhome, and their project included a deposit the company said was for kitchen cabinets — though the vendor reported none had actually been ordered. The company also failed to pay an invoice for a portable toilet at the Patten home, and the couple eventually hired another contractor to finish the work. Lisa Patten described feeling betrayed and devastated.
Cutting Edge Homes lists a Waverly Street office address in Ashland on its website and social media, but property owner Robert Seta said the company hasn't occupied the building since 2025. Seta provided a cease-and-desist letter he said Cutting ignored, and said other tenants complained that people were showing up at all hours looking for the company.
Sean Cutting has owned a sprawling home in Hopkinton for the past decade, a property that includes a personal golf hole in the backyard, per the investigation.
A Pattern State Regulators Have Flagged Before
The limits of state oversight described in this case echo an earlier NBC Boston investigation into contractor Steve Docchio, which found OCABR can't initiate its own probe unless a homeowner files an HIC complaint first. That 2021 report found Docchio had been investigated in 2017 and 2020, resulting in more than $5,000 in fines and a five-month suspension, yet he continued to hold an active Massachusetts HIC registration despite consumer complaints and restrictions placed on him in Rhode Island and Connecticut. For homeowners weighing whether to file a complaint, the state's own guidance is blunt: an OCABR complaint can trigger regulatory scrutiny, but it won't put money back in anyone's pocket.
