New Home Builder Rant (phone, cost, repair, construction)

[City-duck]

My parents bought a home up and down at the height of the bubble in Dec 2006. Since last year theirs and the few other builders began redoing the stucco on pretty much every home. I don't need to go into detail as its pretty much widely known that newer homes everywhere is afflicted with bad stucco jobs.

A year ago my parents received solicitation by a law firm that told them they could get a settlement if builder decided not to fix their house. They probably thought having a lawyer would get their house fixed faster but it turns out that they can't communicate with them as nobody answers the phone and of course they can't ask Pulte to do anything once they've lawyered up. And the cherry on top is the 10 year warranty which covers the stucco is due to expire soon.

So now they are stuck with a law firm that seems to be nothing more than a voicemail box thats full and can't even ask builder to do the promised warranty work on their house. Meanwhile, every other house in the neighborhood has been redone or is in the process of being fixed--all without lawyers involved.

What I can conclude is that builder (and every other big homebuilder) purposely collaborated with this law firm to latch onto homeowners and play the delay game to the point where their warranty expires and no recourse is available. The naive homeowner such as my parents will think they are being helped (just like any lawyer soliciting you is trying to HELP you, right? LOL) and give up their rights to communicate with the home builder, which can now relax since they aren't getting phone calls and complaints from the homeowners themselves anymore.

The only solution I can think of is asking my parents to send a written notice for their attorney to withdraw from representation of their case and deal with the builder themselves like everyone else has done and succeeded by.

I've also suggested my parents sell their house and move into an older home to avoid this EZ construction craziness which will be costly for years to come.

[TrapperL]

I would suggest you calling the builder direct and speak to the head of Customer Service about this. You'll be asking what does it take for Pulte to fix the home. Most likely they are going to want a letter to the "lawyer" basically firing them. I assume they filed and signed paperwork with this "lawyer". It may even take another attorney to get loose from these scumbags so the house can be fixed. The builder will need to be in the loop but until they are no longer in a lawsuit with this clowns, they will not touch the house.
You probably need to go over any paperwork they signed and see what if any, are the terms of canceling the lawsuit. Some of these scumbags will write into the contract that if you cancel you still owe them half of the estimated cost of the repairs. Hopefully that's not the case but you need to read the agreement. Sometimes these joined lawsuits takes decades to be resolved and the winners are the lawyers as the home owner generally ends up with pocket change, if that much. One case I'm familiar with took 20 years for final settlement for millions and the home owners got less than a dollar. The rest of the money went to attorneys fees.

[need4speed2012]

You don't mention where this was and since many of these lawsuits involve the American Arbitration Association, I would suggest that you call them to find out what your next steps would be.

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