J National Contractors

Manda R.

I hired JNational for electrical work and they did a good job. In particular, the foreman was a really nice guy who had sold his electrical contracting business to JNational. The gentlemen was very helpful as well and pointed out several other issues that needed to taken care of regarding my units and the entire complex in general.

JNational also bid on and worked with our HOA for several projects. As with any major construction project, there will always be issues that come up and will need to be addressed. Whats important is the ability of the contractor to show up with a good faith attitude and a commitment to honesty and making things right. I am glad to report, JNational came through and made things right.

Dr. Andy S.

I was scheduled for an 11:am interview today for an administrative position. I was scheduled to meet Tatiana and Maggie, per a previous phone conversation.

When I arrived Tatiana, who was at the front desk, was already speaking unprofessionally to someone on the phone.

I walked up, introduced myself, and she handed me about 10 pages of paperwork. I said "I thought I was scheduled for an interview at 11 am?" In otherwords, please do not ask for:
1) my social sec number
2) my eexact address, including unit number,
3) for me to reiterate my entire resume, work experience, piece by piece
4) for me to reiterate my entire resume's contact/reference info
5) signature for them to do a background check before I've ever met ONE person to see if it's a good fit.
6) ion my day off, I had 2 more appointments scheduled... even the doctors office tells you if you need to come an hour early to complete an autobiography, which again was already on resume

People who ask for all of your personal information without even first meeting you make me wonder.

And not to mention that every person who walked by looked a lot shady.

And then there was another guy who apparently got all dressed up and ready for an "interview" too...he kept rolling his eyes as if to thank me for saying what he was thinking.

J NATIONAL...Please DO NOT WASTE PEOPLE'S TIME. IF YOU ARE A DOOR TO DOOR, FULL COMMISSION, OR OTHERWISE SOME FUNKY SCHEME (PYRAMID ??), then just man-up. Some people still need that. Just try some honesty and respect of other people and their time.

This place is junky!! It's contrary to the pics on the Internet.

Ahhh!!! Now I feel better

Drew R.

J National is a company I have been using for years! I manage a multi family property and have never had any problems with this company!

Marida V.

We are a condominium community in houston flooded by hurricane harvey. J national wasn't even a asked to bid on the rebuild project. Because their reviews were so poor. However, unbeknownst to anyone else, The former(resigned before being voted out) president had a longtime friendship with the owners wife. She secretly ,illegally, brought J national instead of the company the board had voted on and chosen. There is nothing wrong with having friends and acquaintances bid on work. That is not what happened here. J national didn't ever bid, after owners started asking questions and realizing that a switch of chosen companies occurred. Scott Trainer the houston manager wouldn't even provide a copy of the contract to owners. nor would he provide a price breakdown detailing what exactly they were charging for. Mr . Trainor and Mr. Katav give an entire new meaning to gaslighting. They talk in circles. They will not answer direct questions. Unfortunately, all of the owners suffered. The former board member paid out the money before the work had been done. None of the work was signed off on by the project manager. The majority of the board had no idea what was going on. All in All, the hoa was billed and paid over $202,000 for what actually was only $48,000 worth of work. Then, they walked off the job. When owners demanded answers. Mr katav came down from Dallas claimed he would make things right . However after a year of stringing the board along , the evidence of the outright fraud and billing for work that was not done was irrefutable. Mr. Katav left the last meeting, admitted that there were serious problems with the numbers . He promised to get back to the Hoa board president and then "forgot".We are in the process of exploring every legal remedy the HOA has available. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE. I never leave reviews. But am so disgusted by the extent of this fraud. Thank goodness for yelp and other review sites. Hopefully, any potential customers will read through all the reviews and immediately remove J national from any consideration.

Anthony G.

Hi there all you busy people. Thanks for taking the time to read this review and I hope that it finds you well and in need of a great Electrician.

Let's start at the beginning. I started to get flickering lights, my garage door stopped opening automatically, the A/C went out along with my electric stove, microwave, and washer/dryer. I had partial power...meaning my TV worked and I had some lights in the house. I live in Texas, in incredibily HOT weather in the summer...and of course, when the A/C went out during the beginning of July in 100 degree heat I was terrified.

I called my electric company (Oncor, BOO!) to help get the power going. I had no idea what was going on. They came out when I wasn't here and left a note on my door stating I would have to replace the part on the meter box because it wasn't their problem and they suggested I call an electrician to get the power going. Luckily I have a home warranty and they sent out J National Contractors from Dallas. Juan Chavelas made the call. My power went out on a Friday afternoon...the hottest part of the day and everyone was reluctant to come out on a weekend and they wanted an arm and leg for emergency calls. It was now Saturday afternoon and I still had no power. When Juan came out he was exhausted from working all day, but he still cared about my problem. He knew I was without power in 100 degree heat with no where to go. I don't have a lot of money for hotel rooms and no way to cook my food. He went right to work.

Juan finished the job quickly without taking a break in the heat. He got my power back on in less than an hour. This kind of company, and man, go to show you that some people still care about the customer. Which is number one in my book. I don't normally do reviews unless someone goes above and beyond the call of duty. This company is now going to be my "go to" company when I need an electrician. If you need good people who care about the customer and not just the money, please go with them. Their efficient friendly attitude is so refreshing in a world that's filled with so many people who are just there for the paycheck and don't care about your problems. So please, go with J National if you need a good reference.

Gwen E.

Response to Jay Katav's response to my original review.

J national was not the company that was chosen by the board of directors after a lengthy bidding process involving a detailed scope of work and exhaustive comparisons.
J National was excluded from consideration and was NOT included in the final list of qualified companies that would be considered. The reasons were two-fold. It was discovered that the previous president had secretly sent all of the other competitors bids to her longtime friend .Jay Katav"s wife! In addition, J National had numerous terrible reviews across many popular online review sites.

The acting board president decided on her own, and without any competitive bidding or review by the entire board chose to bring in J national . J national was not required to bid on the same scope of work all the other companies were given. No proper procedures were followed and noone knew what was going on.
Fact. J national through Scott trainor refused to give a copy of contracts to owners upon request or to the property manager. He ignored requests for some kind of documentation that showed what we were being charged. It took months, to finally get the contract. after they were long gone.

The structural work that J national did perform was of such poor quality, the structural engineer when asked to come sign off on the work , instead submitted a 23 page list of incomplete and unacceptable work that must be redone.  This was work that J national had said they had already done and were trying to get approved. (see pictures attached) 

When individual owners realized that the original chosen company had been replaced without any notification and when owners viewed the initial work that had been performed by J national, 106 out of 131 owners gave written notice to the hoa office that forbid J national from even stepping inside their units.  The pres resigned. J national stopped all work and didn't even complete the units that they had started.

After the newly elected board stopped any further work from being done before an audit could be completed. J national decided they were done. The work they had done was not only poor quality, but it did not comply with the original scope of work approved by the hoa. (see attached pictures) J national never would never provide any kind of price breakdown for what we were being charged. Several audits determined that Jay National had been paid for 25 percent of the total possible contract price yet not a single unit was completed according to their own scope of work.

I have talked to several yelp members who have contacted me through yelp messages. These reviews and yelp are doing exactly what they were designed to do.  warn other consumers away from companies that have not performed up to any acceptable standard and far worse got paid for work that was not done and then walked away.








posted.. 03/07/20
We are a condominium community in houston flooded by hurricane harvey. J national wasn't even a asked to bid on the rebuild project. Because their reviews were so poor. However, unbeknownst to anyone else, The former(resigned before being voted out) president decided on her own to give J national the contract. (did i mention we later found out that she had longtime friendship with the owners wife.) She secretly ,illegally, brought J national instead of the company the board had voted on and chosen. There is nothing wrong with having friends and acquaintances bid on work. That is not what happened here. J national didn't ever bid, after owners started asking questions and realizing that a switch of chosen companies occurred. Scott Trainer the houston manager wouldn't even provide a copy of the contract to owners. nor would he provide a price breakdown detailing what exactly they were charging for. The work was of such poor quality owners could not proceed with their own rebuild. The majority of the board had no idea what was going on. When owners demanded answers. The president stopped showing up to the property. eventually, owners united and forced all work to stop until an audit could be done. J national left the job, left the leftover ,soggy materials strewn about the property. Owners were left to pick up the pieces with much of the work left undone. After yelp reviews started appearing, Mr Katav agreed to come and meet with the new board to go over the audit that we had performed. He admitted that there must have been serious mistakes made and he would make them right. He promised to get back to the board president within a couple days and then "forgot". We are in the process of exploring every legal remedy the HOA has available. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE. Thank goodness for yelp and other review sites. Hopefully, any potential customers will read through all the reviews and immediately remove J national from any consideration. don't forget to see the pictures of the"quality" of J national's work

Dan H.

They use unlicensed plumbers that don't know what is legal or not. Beware of using for anything other than clearing the sewer line through an an approved outdoor clean out at a residential house only.

Liz T.

J National is the biggest crook on the face of the earth!!!! This company completely destroyed my property and should never be allowed to be in business. Plain and simple Jay Katav (owner) is as crooked as they come in the contracting business or in any business. Everything he tells you is a lie. His crew was completely unskilled, he picks up day laborers off the street and they don't know anything. When there is a problem he sends Caesar in to try to smooth things over to get him out of completing this project.

He was paid to do stucco repairs, replace old, rotted wood, hardi repairs and exterior paint. They painted over the old, rotted wood instead of replacing, prepping and painting it. And all the caulking that was replaced was immediately painted over without letting it cure, so of course this lead to major leaking. One year later the caulking was still wet and peeled right off. And other areas he said they caulked we pulled the caulking out and it was the old brittle caulking with the old paint on it, which he charged me for. And he was lying right to my face and my contractor about the caulking.....this guy was unbelievable.

Their supervisors are a joke and they let their unskilled workers run amok all over the property. No supervision whatsoever..... Very long story short they had to come back to do the entire job over, I had to hire my own contractor to baby sit his supervisor and crew and make sure that they completed the work properly and to keep things from turning into a three ring circus. He took MY contractor out to lunch and tried to bribe him to sign off on the project as complete when it wasn't even close to being complete. First offered him $1,000, then $2,000 and finally $3,500 to release him from finishing his job that he was already paid for by my ex management company.

He kept telling my contractor that he had so many lawsuits and needed to not finish his project.....that he had so many problems and wanted my contractor to lie to me and tell me that he did a good job and that he was finished.

Jay Katav was trying to break his contract and just leave his job and walk away with my money. He eventually did leave the job incomplete and never returned and never returned a portion of the money for unfinished work.

Unbeknownst to Mr. Jay Katav my contractor was actually my husband.....so Jay was actually trying to bribe one of the owner's to let him out of finishing his project and keeping all the money. Needless to say he failed miserably!!!!!

I would HIGHLY DISCOURAGE anyone from even picking up the phone and calling for an estimate......it would be a HUGE MISTAKE!!!

C W.

Our pipe had started leaking from the recent winter storm and Axel did a great job coordinating the repair for us. While most other plumbers I requested a quote from were not very responsive, Axel stayed in communication with me even despite him going through family emergency. They also don't charge you to come out to give you an estimate. His guys came out twice to repair the leak itself and the sheet rock that had to be ripped in order to get to the pipe. Axel and his guys made sure to have it all repaired and cleaned to make it look the same way as it did before and do a final check.

Grant H.

They didn't even try to fix my problem, only told me that AFCI breakers are designed to trip all the time, so I have to keep resetting it everyday. They didn't even try to replace the faulty breaker. Terrible customer service.