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OK, perhaps I shouldn't have snapped off so quickly. My apologies. I guess I better than anyone should know about the great percentage of henckie contractors out there.
I just didn't like the extreme generalization thrown out there basically saying "All contractors are in it for 1 reason", blah, blah. I for one would never have and never did walk away from a home unless the client was completely happy. Still to this day I have homeowners call me up to come and re-program their lighting control systems and do other minor repairs and I left the custom home business over 10 years ago and have moved on to sky-scrapers.
Unfortunately, these issues just come with the territory in these tract homes. It happens a lot out here in Cali as well.
Boy I'll tell ya, if there is any possible way to get some % of the sale price to be held as a retention until open issues (punch list) are resolved and signed off on... That would be the way to go. I've been told that with home sales being in the toilet some builders out here have been known to do that just to close the sale of a house.
That's how we do it in large scale construction. You get your final 10% retention when punch-list is complete and signed off by ownership.
OK, perhaps I shouldn't have snapped off so quickly. My apologies. I guess I better than anyone should know about the great percentage of henckie contractors out there.
I just didn't like the extreme generalization thrown out there basically saying "All contractors are in it for 1 reason", blah, blah. I for one would never have and never did walk away from a home unless the client was completely happy. Still to this day I have homeowners call me up to come and re-program their lighting control systems and do other minor repairs and I left the custom home business over 10 years ago and have moved on to sky-scrapers.
Unfortunately, these issues just come with the territory in these tract homes. It happens a lot out here in Cali as well.
Boy I'll tell ya, if there is any possible way to get some % of the sale price to be held as a retention until open issues (punch list) are resolved and signed off on... That would be the way to go. I've been told that with home sales being in the toilet some builders out here have been known to do that just to close the sale of a house.
That's how we do it in large scale construction. You get your final 10% retention when punch-list is complete and signed off by ownership.
OK, well maybe you just are a really good contractor. Unfortunately, my builder seemed to choose a lot of not-so-good contractors. The only one that actually was great was the electrical contractor - and after my builder failed to properly set up some appointments with them for minor repairs, they just told me to call them directly and bypass the builder. But there were only very very minor problems with the electrical work, compared to the problems with the other contractors' work.
That makes a lot of sense about some % of sales price held as retention until punch list issues are resolved and signed off on. The original poster would be wise to see if they can do that, if possible.
More than a year later, there's still a pile of things on the punch list from walkthrough not even addressed! All I get are excuses upon excuses from the builder. As someone correctly stated, once you go to closing, the builder is no longer very motivated to make things right. At least not the builder who built my house. I'm trying not to generalize either, and hopefully my experience is an outlier. Although, my neighbors are having the same difficulties as I am getting the builder to finish items on their punch lists. Their houses don't seem to have quite the number of issues outstanding as mine does, however. I was the only one unlucky enough to be missing an entire basement window for one thing (that the builder could have corrected when I spotted it - but it was my bad luck being the first house in this new section of our development and not having another model like mine built until after I closed on the house).
I do think you are right - in general a lot of these issues are kind of part of what happens when you buy a house built by a builder who builds large housing developments. I doubt you'd have a lot of these problems on a custom built home. Unfortunately, such a house was not within my financial means - not for the kind of single family home my wife wanted. I also should have done more due diligence on this builder - and that was kind of my fault. However, the neighborhood is great, the neighbors are great, and the design of the house is great - it is just the implementation of the house that is not so great. Such is life!
However, builders usually have around a 2 year time frame within their contracts to build a home though it usually only takes them 5-8 months (depending on the builder). I am not sure there is much you can do.
Jonathan Bunn
Century 21 Redwood Realty (required)
Thank you so much everyone for your valuble time and information.
The construction delay is costing me so much money.
What guys advice me on consulting realestate attorney on this dealy? Am I going to get benefit or lose more money.
Warranty:
The bulder is saying that he can give additinal one year warrenty for this issue(basement water).Actully structural warranty is 10 years and others are 1 year.Now he is offering me 2 years on this issue. Can you advice me on this
I am planning to get third party advisor (another construction engineer) to verify the quality of the home and do the pre-drywall and final inspections.
[SIZE=3] [/SIZE]
kris
However, builders usually have around a 2 year time frame within their contracts to build a home though it usually only takes them 5-8 months (depending on the builder). I am not sure there is much you can do.
Jonathan Bunn
Century 21 Redwood Realty (required)
You are right - actually technically my house came with a 1 year warranty from the builder, and then another 9 years "structural warranty" from some home warranty corporation.
However, the builder has missed many appointments, and things have dragged out - so for me and many of my neighbors - they are still working off punch lists that were made at closing. For one thing, none of the driveways have been sealed in the new section of the neighborhood - even for houses like mine that were finished in late 2008. So, the builder hasn't even finished work - even though as I type this they are slapping together yet more houses in this section of the neighborhood.
They are very fast at building the houses. They are very slow at doing anything once you pass the magic "settlement date"! Then again, they are very good at making appointments to fix things. They aren't so good at keeping those appointments - roughly a 50% fail rate! Often it is their contractors - and the contractors blame the builder for not notifying them of the appointment, and the builder claims they did. As it has happened to many different contractors, I kind of think it to be the builder's fault for the missed appointments. Just last Thursday had an appointment scheduled for 12 noon to 2 PM. As usual, took a half day off from work. By 3:30 PM - no contractor had showed. Sure enough, call the builder - they start pointing fingers at the contractor, the contractor points fingers back at the builder - and meanwhile - yet another 1/2 day of vacation down the drain....
OP, sorry to hear of your dilemma. It's always exciting getting a new house buit, but I would be wary of what's happening also.
I had a new house built in NoVA. Not custom-built and part of a development. While there weren't any real structural problems, I did have an issue with crooked doors and doorways, a leaky roof (flashing problem), stairs and front porch landing that fell apart/rotted (pressure-treated lumber was not used),cheap windows, water seeping into my walk-out basement, and cheap insulation. Mt roof continued to have a problem even after the builder came out several times and said it was "fixed." My neighbors and I re-did our stairs and porches. One neighbor had a bathroom problem where the pipes broke and the toilet had to be replaced.
My more-recent home has a sump pump. I asked for a dedicated electrical circuit with a back-up battery which the Seller installed. No problems with water so far. A previous owner installed a utility sink that empties into the sump pump which is connected to the septic (public septic). This house is far more solid than the last and guess what? It was built in the 1930s. Buying a historic home is a little different than a new one in that it's just common to hire extra specialists --i.e., structural engineer, roofing specialist, electrical or EPA experts if needed. Better safe than sorry and the few extra $$ is worth it. However, water in a basement is a deal-breaker (at least for me it is). I would never buy a house (new or old) that has that kind of problem. Don't put up with something that you're not happy with. After all, you're about to put alot of money into that new house.
Does your contract have a clause of mediation -- a meeting of the two parties to remedy issues without going to litigation? You may be able to go this route without an attorney.
Also, try posting in the "House" Forum as there are alot of folks who've had the same problem as you. Good luck and hope things work out for you!
If you're even for 1 second leaning towards taking any legal steps let me just tell you this...
Do not falter or appear anything less than highly committed to taking legal steps. Big tract type general contractors can spot an emotional homeowner just slinging out legal threats a mile away.
If you're going to go the leagl route you should absolutely not do it alone. You need to rope in a few neighbors with ya. I would get as many fellow neighbors with similar issues together as possible and ask an attorney how much money to write a letter on his letterhead to the G.C. In that letter the attorney should express that he is now on retainer for representation of a list of homeowners with addresses. The attorney won't say that unless there is some money on retainer. But he may write out something creative to give the impression that he will soon be on retainer and will soon be representing multiple clients if corrective action is not taken immediately. An attorney versed in contract law is who you want for this.
That letter should have specifics that the GC can relate to... A list of similar un-resolved issues in multiple homes that are the basis for your claims. The names and addresses of you and your fellow complaintants. And a specific time-frame in which you all expect full resolution. That is huge.
On another note, there is definitely specific verbiage that pertains to when exactly the home warranty begins. Under contract law the GC has to give the bare minimum warranty of 1-year. The sub contractors are held to the same. Some products like roofing system, water-proofing, structural, even ballasts in fluorescent lights can have manufacturer warranties anywhere from 1 year to 20 years. The day the home warranty starts is written into the contract and will usually say "Upon Certificate of Occupancy". If a house is part of a housing tract where the sale of a home occurs while the rest of the tract phases are still being built out it may say "Upon Substantial Completion".
Substantial completion is a tricky one. You could be "Substantially Complete" while still having punch list items. Punch list items are supposed to be by nature small in relative value to the cost of the overall building of the home. This can be a highly contested subject.
In short (if that is possible at this juncture) the legal route is a tough way to go. Suing a very large contractor for small time dollars like $15-$30K is highly cost prohibitive and if you've ever sued anyone or been part of a suit you know that it's usually not worth it. It would cost you more than that just to go to court. And the contractors know that.
Bonding together or threatening to bond togther with other homeowners to bring (5) $15-$30K issues
together into (1) larger lawsuit? Well that's a different story.
Hope this helps... Someone.
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