State sues Burlington kitchen remodeling company

BY ANNA JOHNSON, TIMES-NEWS

The N.C. Attorney Generals Office has sued a now-defunct Burlington kitchen remodeling company after it reportedly left dozens of homeowners across North Carolina high and dry.

Attorney General Roy Cooper filed a civil suit in Wake County Superior Court against American Kitchen Corp. and its owners, Robert Selfors and Tyler Justin Sheets. The suit seeks to ban the owners from offering home repairs or home improvement services in the future, and to force them to pay retribution to the homeowner victims.

Cooper says American Kitchen offered kitchen remodeling services, often requiring customers to pay up front, and then hired subcontractors to complete the remodeling work. The company was unable to pay the subcontractors to complete the existing jobs without recruiting new customers.

American Kitchen started to fail when the company was no longer able to bring in new customers to pay subcontractors and suppliers, according to an NCDOJ press release. The unpaid subcontractors and suppliers recently filed liens against several customers homes, many of whose kitchen remodeling jobs remain unfinished.

To date, 32 North Carolina homeowners have reported either losing money to American Kitchen, having liens placed on their property, or both, according to the lawsuit. Total losses are estimated at $400,000.

Attempts to reach Sheets and Selfors by the office phone and by numbers provided by customers were unsuccessful.

The Burlington company shuttered its Tucker Street office in June and, to date, 30 complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureaus Greensboro office.

Paul and Frances Tausch, who live in Wake Forest and have family in Burlington, paid American Kitchen a little more than $12,000 for a remodeled kitchen. Work on the kitchen, despite being scheduled to begin in May, never occurred.

Weve had a lot of people who have reached out to us, Frances Tausch said. The lawsuit is going in the right direction, and I hope with the lawsuit American Kitchen is made to pay us. I wish it will forever prevent (Sheets) and his pal from operating here again in North Carolina.

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State sues Burlington kitchen remodeling company