BIA - Building Industry of Central Ohio

This pertains to the BIA of Central Ohio-not the same organization but unable to delete. Please do not waste your time on the Grievance Procedure. If you find yourself in this situation, please consult legal representation and dont be mislead that you can have representation during the process. Please be aware of all minimum standards accepted by the BIA because it appears that all their inspections are on their to protect the builder and to find everything within minimum standards. For instance, a bowed wall can we bowed 1/4 without any action required by the builder. Guess what they are going to measure your wall to be bowed at? Please save yourself $300 and 6 months of waiting and consult legal representation Services: Luxury home building, Home building
Dec 28th, 2021

33 years. Hard to believe.
Jul 15th, 2018

Delivered their by monthly magazine that we print for them.
Jul 23rd, 2017

Oct 3rd, 2016

I hired a company to build my house that told me they were a member of this organization. The company was called "Lakewood Construction Associates". As it turned out, this particular company was not actually a BIA member, but the people who owned and ran Lakewood had another company called Prism Construction Company. Prism was run out of the same house, had all the same employees and owners, and was essentially a carbon copy of Lakewood. Both companies had the same identical webpage, which even showed pictures of the same houses with each company claiming that they had built the houses. After further research, it turns out that neither of those companies had built any of the houses pictured! After talking with the BIA executive director Jim Hilz (aka Jim Shills), I learned that the BIA was just a marketing organization for home builders, and that they had no meaningful ethical standards whatsoever. Although they marketed their "Parade of Homes" as a compilation of the "best builders in central Ohio", in reality literally anyone could create a company, pay a fee to the BIA, and then build a house in the Parade. I actually called this organization and told them I had a friend who was in prison for ripping off customers who had hired him to build houses, and they told me they would be more than happy to have him as a member, as long as he paid his fees! Disgusting! They were willing to portray a felon convicted of fraud as a "trusted professional" as long as he was willing to pay them a nominal membership fee of ~$500. I and other victims of this scam builder complained to the BIA, but neither the employees, the executive director, nor any of the trustees or members of the board that I talked to seemed to care at all. I met with Jim Shills and an attorney the BIA hired, Mark Decker to discuss this builder. Jim and Mark assured me and my wife they would at least check into this matter and told me they wanted to meet again after they had time to talk to the board. As it turns out, they actually lied about numerous facts in our meeting, and eventually refused to ever meet again. They never even had the common courtesy to contact us and let us know that they considered the matter finished, they just told me to "be patient" whenever I contacted them to ask about our next meeting. In fact, not a single one of the trustees or board members ever returned a single call either. I would caution anyone thinking of hiring a builder in central Ohio not to consider membership in the BIA as having any meaning whatsoever. While the vast majority of BIA members are probably great people, the BIA itself will accept anyone who is willing to pay them a few bucks. This was a good organization many years ago, but has now devolved into a scam designed to con the central Ohio public.
Jan 22nd, 2016