Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Homeowners Say Contractor Burned Them After Payments to Fix Fire Devastation

More than three years ago, a fire that started in a neighbor’s property ravaged Anne McNeill’s Brooklyn brownstone. She hoped the incinerated interior would be quickly repaired.

More than three years ago, a fire that started in a neighbor’s property ravaged Anne McNeill’s Brooklyn brownstone.

She hoped the incinerated interior would be quickly repaired. She wanted to return to her three-story home, in the Stuyvesant Heights historic district on Macdonough Street.

A month after the fire, McNeill agreed to pay nearly $400,000 to Long Island-based contractor Stephen Rivers and his company, Restoration Management Plus, to make repairs. Her home insurer agreed on a settlement claim to cover the costs, with funds sent to Rivers in increments based on the amount of work completed.

Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY Anne McNeill, 75, is living with a friend while waiting for repairs to her Bedford-Stuyvesant home. In Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island, more than a dozen say insurance payouts got pocketed by a home improvement company that left their homes incomplete or even [...]




Comments