Planning to build legal basement as a second unit - contractor issue

Hello all Seniors,

This is my first post here. We are living in Oakville and planning to build a legal basement as a second unit at our detached house. I am sharing our below story with contractor which is going on.

We contacted one contractor who came from one of our family friend reference. First, he came and give us verbally impressive quote and showed us how many legal basement projects he did it in Peel region.

As, he came from reference from friend and initial quote which he told us was way less than what we got from another contractor. after discussion, he asked us to pay only $1500 included for the drawings and get permit from the city. (We do have a text message as a proof that we paid him $1500). He visited two or three times to our house get measurements, etc... on our third meeting, he came up with new quote that as per Oakville city rules we need to do extended windows, fire roof door, etc... and came with new quote around $8000 more than what he initially told us and also way less than other contractor offering for the basement work. He did drawings and pull out some drawing from city and saying that his work to get permit from city is almost 90% finished and asked us to approve drawing to submit to the city to get permit approval.

We called him and decided not planning to go with him and requested him that if possible, please give us existing drawings and papers as we paid him $1500 Or give us a partial refund of the $1500 as we are not going with him. Now he is asking another $500 to give drawings and basement related papers to us. (**He confirmed that he did not apply for the permit yet nor he paid any fee to city for the permit). We told him that we understand that his expertise and time consuming happened in this process and we are ready to compensate for his efforts to do 50-50% of $1500.

Now he is saying us that $2000 is regular fee for drawings only and making excuses and not ready to give our drawing or partial refund the money. Now he knows that we are not going with him to do the job he is not co-operating (what an un-professional contractor) We already burnt our hand and learnt lesson from our mistake. Some time question is coming in our mind that Do really cost around $2000 for a legal basement drawing only? is it any way to get back some money as a refund or get drawing of the basement?

We are little bit in tricky situation and any help or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you