WBTV investigation leads to government action against local pool company

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - A WBTV investigation has prompted government action against a local pool company accused of walking off the job leaving their customers out of tens of thousands of dollars.

The North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors revoked the license for Charlotte Fiberglass Pools shortly after WBTV raised questions about different complaints to the licensing board that did not result in disciplinary action.

Charlotte Fiberglass never applied for a permit when building a pool on Karen Ballesteros property so Union County code enforcement filed a complaint to the NCLBGC.

Two days after our story aired on Ballesteros, NCLBGC scheduled a hearing on the case and in a response letter to the board, Charlotte Fiberglass owner Niruy Ortiz voluntarily surrender her license.

Ballesteros was not the only one with permit problems.

In Mecklenburg County, WBTV found the company opened 133 permits since 2014 and only 19 passed final inspection while 84 expired.

At the time WBTV reported that information, the head of county code enforcement said the low number of jobs that passed and the high number of jobs that were never scheduled for inspection didn’t raise any red flags.

“That's the responsibility of the contractor to do that and so that is maybe something we could look at in the future to see what we could do,” Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi said.

Now his office says they are looking for a solution.

In an email, a county spokesperson wrote “there has been ongoing discussions on installing new mechanisms for follow-up with regard to high-failure-rate contractors. We are in the midst of exploring a new permitting and inspections software system, and are reviewing what options there might be under this system’s capabilities.”

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