Contractor Built Structure Without A Permit And We Didn’t Know.

Location: LA County

I posted here before about I believe this licensed construction company has been scamming my grandfather. Today they put the cherry on top.

For months from the plans we’ve seen and what they made up put in the window “permit for a patio cover”. My grandfather hired them to build a sunroom. They told him permits take time and “we needed a permit for the frame first” some bullshit along those lines. They got the patio cover built half a week ago and today they had an inspector come out to look at it and he said it was all good. The contractor had workers waiting for the inspector to leave and came in and tore the patio cover down and started building the sunroom room. You can look at my posts and see what we got vs what we asked for. It was NOTHING like what the contractor said they’d do. There has been no breakdown on where the money has been going. No sketches, just showed a picture and said “we can do this”. I made my grandfather tell them it looks nothing like what they agreed on and the contractor said he’s working with engineers to tweak it to look better. They’re so sketchy but if you tell them it’s wrong they’ll do their best to rectify the situation. He’s paid them so much money it probably doesn’t matter to do cheap fixes until my grandfather is satisfied with the work.

He’s told me multiple times to bud out and stop talking to him about it but I just can’t sit here and watch him get scammed. He’s paying $180,000 total for all the work they’ve done and I’m pretty sure from the vague talks they’ve had about money that $80,000 is going into the sunroom alone. What is being built is not at all worth that much. I wouldn’t even know who to tell about the elder abuse. I’ve told him to fire the contractors from day 1 and he’s too stubborn to listen.

What worries me is the permit that they obviously don’t have, can my grandfather be held liable if he never knew? He still doesn’t know there’s no permit but it’s so obvious there isn’t one. Who do I call? What are the exact steps should I take? Is there anywhere I can look for a pro bono lawyer if I need one? I don’t have money to hire one. I want to be able to get his money back for cheap work and misleading/lying to him the entire time. It’s been over 6 months since he hired these guys and I’ve felt so stuck being able to help.