Nearly a hundred San Diego County homeowners say a local ADU contractor took out enormous construction loans under each of their names for work that in most cases never even started. The contractor, Multitaskr, was based out of Chula Vista and was licensed to work in the state of California.
The CEO of Multitasker, Jose Frausto, has not responded to repeated calls, emails and an in-person visit to his home by NBC 7 Investigates. We asked Frausto to explain how his company spent millions of dollars worth of construction loans. The company’s office building in Chula Vista has removed any signage of Multitasker and appears closed. State regulators have suspended Multitaskr’s license while they investigate the complaints lodged against it.
Some of the lenders are working with homeowners to cancel outstanding debts. In the meantime, dozens of Multitaskr clients are making thousands of dollars worth of loan payments each month for work they never got.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
“It’s expensive already to live here in San Diego,” said Sinthia Garcia. “Let alone being able to have to pay monthly for a house I don’t have.”
Garcia says she has been paying construction lenders about $4,000 a month since July for an ADU she should already be living in. The 31-year-old social worker told NBC 7 Investigates she didn’t have many options for affordable housing in the San Diego area.
An ADU behind her family’s San Ysidro home seemed ideal, not only in price, but in proximity to her ailing mother in need of caregiving support. Instead, Garcia now says she is burning through savings to be able to cover the monthly loan payments.
“It’s disheartening in a sense that I can’t move forward,” said Sinthia Garcia. “Because I’m stuck essentially.”
Garcia is one of dozens of Multitaskr clients seeking financial relief through the court system. Her attorney, Masuad Ghulam has four current lawsuits against Multitaskr.
Local
“I think that it really could happen to anyone,” Ghulam said. “You have this company with amazing reviews on the internet…that they do all the financing in-house for clients. They were really a one-stop shop for everything.”
NBC 7 Investigates scoured court records and counted nearly 100 homeowners in San Diego County who have already filed lawsuits against the contractor. The homeowners claim Multitaskr took out cash loans totaling $15 million; money the contractor was supposed to spend on building accessory dwelling units or ADUs.
In the meantime, state protections offer little relief.
“You’re not protected at all by these safeguards that you think would be in place,” said Robin Owen, who owns a home in Escondido and a rental property in downtown San Diego.
Owen hired Multitaskr to build an ADU at each of his properties. The contractor took out more than $900,000 under Owen’s name. The permits were approved last year, but a shovel has yet to hit the ground on either project, and Owen says the company won’t respond to his calls or emails.
Licensed contractors in California are only required to have $25,000 of bond insurance. The money is supposed to go to clients when contractors fail to do the work they’re hired to do. If more than one homeowner files a claim against a contractor’s bond, the clients have to split the payout. However, the average claim against Multitaskr to build a single ADU easily exceeds $200,000.
“It allows people to be in business,” says Katherine White, Chief of Public Affairs for the Contractors State License Board. “The problem is as we move up that bond it makes it trickier for us to vet the process, and for us to allow all the contractors to have this valid bond.”
It is against the law for a contractor to collect money for work that is not finished or material that is not delivered. A down payment cannot exceed $1,000 or 10% of the contract price (whichever is less), and subsequent payments cannot exceed the cost of materials and labor.
While it’s illegal for contractors to accept a lump sum ahead of completing a project, apparently it’s not illegal for lenders to give them a bunch of cash all at once. State regulators with the Department of Financial Protection & Innovation told NBC 7 Investigates that there is nothing illegal about a lender paying a contractor for an entire project in full and upfront.
As part of the suspension of Multitaskr’s license, the Contractors State License Board is reviewing eleven complaints. Depending on the outcome of that investigation, information could be referred to the California Attorney General or the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office for potential criminal prosecution.
