Arkansas homeowner says he paid $1.4 million on a $574,000 remodel that was never finished

John Scoggins filed the case in Miller County Circuit Court on Nov. 4 (case 46CV-26-983), Texarkana Today reported. The complaint accuses the defendants of breach of contract, negligence, fraud and conversion, and of violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It seeks more than $1.5 million or, as an alternative, a refund of $823,105.39. The claims have not been proven, and as of Thursday the defendants had not filed a response, according to the online docket.

According to the complaint, the company priced the job in January 2024 at $574,274.50, billed as cost plus 12%. Neither side signed the written proposal. Work began in February 2024 on a verbal deal that set an eight-month finish. The suit says scope and price rose with no signed change orders, and that some invoices carried duplicate or unsupported charges, including project-management fees of about $1,640 apiece for what looked like material deliveries. Scoggins says he was also billed to redo defective work, and that appliances and fixtures he paid for are still in the company's possession.

The company's billing portal shows another $184,910.56 that Scoggins disputes. When he stopped paying, the complaint says, the company walked off the job. Photos filed with the suit show open walls and wiring, stripped cabinets and plastic over unfinished floors. During the work the family lived in a far smaller building on the same lot, and it bought another house more than two years into the project.

The complaint also alleges that the manager allowed CK Southern's registration as an Arkansas LLC to lapse in the middle of the job without telling the owner, and kept working on the house himself.