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While I am intimately familiar with how the big builders work, I am not always on their side. In this case it seems those home buyers are just greedy. From what I read I have to side with Perry Homes. Many many many times I have seen builders throw money at a complaint. It was easier to pay off a homeowner or fix the damn problem then the cost of this now famous litigation which will do far more damage to Perry Homes then fixing a few problems would have in the first place.
Let me give one example but I will not mention the builder. A minor hairline crack developed in the driveway of a new home about 6 weeks after they moved in. I determined it would cost the builder about $8000 to tear it all back up and pour a whole new one. You can't just patch it. The builder offered the homeowner $5000 cash to shut up and call it even. The minor crack is the nature of concrete, it is supposed to crack but people don't like it. I probably would not either. The homeowner took that cash and laughed all the way to the bank. That is how the game is played.
my point exactly!
as for the concrete crack, that had to be an entire driveway and it was not a small driveway. if it was gonna cost 8k to remove and replace then there was more to it then just a "hairline crack". i completely agree that concrete cracks, and ignorant (not stupid but uneducated in the subject) are never going to under stand that.
I think this section from the NPR article says it all:
"The only person in 12 years who has heard every bit of testimony, read all the depositions, the engineering reports and sat face-to-face with all parties for three days is the arbitrator," Bob Cull says.
The arbitrator sided with the Culls. Perry Homes was ordered to pay $800,000 in damages and retake ownership of the house. The Culls felt triumphant and vindicated. But they were about to discover that if your builder has the resources, binding arbitration isn't necessarily all that binding.
Note that the $800k included punitive damages. So even the arbitrator, who is generally a Texas homeowner's only option (and a Texas builders' best friend), decided that Perry's company had royally screwed up.
so your saying 58m is ok? lets put this into perspective, perry homes builds homes of an average price around 200k. now considering we are not given the value of the culls home so lets say it is worth 350k. so if they are supposed to get 58m, that is roughly 166 NEW HOMES! that is excessive no mater of how at fault a business is.
sure he could have taken the 800k, but then again we do not know what the problems where with the house, how do we know the home owner didnt cause the foundation issues? watering your yard to much, watering your foundation, did they add a deck? change the drainage in the yard? who knows. we dont know what perry did to try to remedy the issue before offering to buy it back?
also for those "bob perry is greedy", while surely he knows whats going on he has TEAMS of lawyers and managers who do everything they can to keep this out of his hands. i would be willing to bet he never spoke to the culls until this latest judgement which he will sure appeal all the way up to the texas supreme court again.
all that said, i will say i am not passing judgement on the people or their problems all i am saying is i am tired of ignorant people passing judgement on the builder because they ALWAYS feel like the builder is out to screw them. i mean it is a business, no different then mcdonalds, target, starbucks and so on. i mean if your double chocolate mocha none fat espresso latte makes you sick, are you going to sue starbucks for 100 million?
so your saying 58m is ok? lets put this into perspective, perry homes builds homes of an average price around 200k. now considering we are not given the value of the culls home so lets say it is worth 350k. so if they are supposed to get 58m, that is roughly 166 NEW HOMES! that is excessive no mater of how at fault a business is.
If it was $20mm, would it be any less ridiculous? The point is that punitive damages, as you know, are to send a message that the company either handled the issue poorly (a gross understatement), covered up facts, destroyed evidence, et al. Basically intent to cause harm. It isn't handed down lightly, at least not in Texas.
Again, we are all armchair lawyers in this case, but to have punitive damages in such extreme excess over the compensatory amount says that something prety big was up and that Perry Homes was crazy at fault.
It will be overturned, or at least drastically reduced, I think we all know that. But the publicity alone is damaging enough. Not that the average consumer pays much attention.
Let me give one example but I will not mention the builder. A minor hairline crack developed in the driveway of a new home about 6 weeks after they moved in. I determined it would cost the builder about $8000 to tear it all back up and pour a whole new one. You can't just patch it. The builder offered the homeowner $5000 cash to shut up and call it even. The minor crack is the nature of concrete, it is supposed to crack but people don't like it. I probably would not either. The homeowner took that cash and laughed all the way to the bank. That is how the game is played.
They didn't "laugh all the way to the bank". When they go to re-sell, they may have to reduce the price because of that crack - which will have widened by that time. It will be looked at by future buyers, who will then cast a hard eye on the integrity of the house itself, which will result in a lower price overall. I would have held out for a new driveway.
My heart bleeds for Perry. These people over-collected - how many people got nothing in buying a bad house from Perry?
save your "bad house" for companies like KB. perry homes is one of the best built "production" homes on the market.
you guys seem to think you should be getting a completley perfect house for your money, built to YOUR specs and the way YOU want it. if that is the case, GET A CUSTOM HOME!
lets put it this way, how many of you have had to take your car/truck in to the dealer for service? warranty, recall? should the ford, GM, toyota, or any of them have to fix the little scratch on the dash? if your car is a lemon and cant be fixed they will buy it back from you but your only getting what you paid and nothing more. where are the dealership bashes?
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travelguy_73
to send a message that the company either handled the issue poorly (a gross understatement),
how do we know? you and i dont know what perry homes did to remedy the problems. we have no idea. and 20m is ridiculous as well.
They didn't "laugh all the way to the bank". When they go to re-sell, they may have to reduce the price because of that crack - which will have widened by that time. It will be looked at by future buyers, who will then cast a hard eye on the integrity of the house itself, which will result in a lower price overall. I would have held out for a new driveway.
another jump to conclusion.
we do not know the details of the size of the driveway, we dont know the size of the crack other then the it was a "hairline crack". hairline cracks do not open up, they are generally caused by "plastic shrinkage" which is shrinkage in the top 1/16-1/32 of an inch. if this was a new home, then surely the builder would normally repair them and if it was a single section of driveway then $8000 is CRAZY. if they paid the home owner (or took the 5k off the price) over a single section of driveway then absolutely the home owners laughed all the way to the bank. if it was the entire driveway and they where that worried about it, then they took the 5k and had it removed and replaced for 3k-4k and made out with 1-2k for their "suffering". now any half way intelligent home buyer knows that a crack in a driveway has absolutely ZERO bearing on the home itself. a cracked driveway does not show pour workmanship, or faulty materials inside or on the home. if you walk up to a home and say "hmmm the driveway has a hairline crack, i wonder if the house is gonna fall apart too" then you have no business buying a house and should never leave your parents attic. ok so that last part was over board but you get the point.
save your "bad house" for companies like KB. perry homes is one of the best built "production" homes on the market.
you guys seem to think you should be getting a completley perfect house for your money, built to YOUR specs and the way YOU want it. if that is the case, GET A CUSTOM HOME!
lets put it this way, how many of you have had to take your car/truck in to the dealer for service? warranty, recall? should the ford, GM, toyota, or any of them have to fix the little scratch on the dash? if your car is a lemon and cant be fixed they will buy it back from you but your only getting what you paid and nothing more. where are the dealership bashes?
how do we know? you and i dont know what perry homes did to remedy the problems. we have no idea. and 20m is ridiculous as well.
What are you doing for High Holidays this year? Wait I forgot, I'm in Texas. Most lawyers aren't Jewish.
Having purchased a newly completed spec house built by a custom builder that turned out to be a lemon, I have some experience on this one. Everybody in town vouched for the builder. We did our homework. Turned out, the house was a lemon. We did everything we were supposed to do by the book. The warranty company did everything they could to stall and obfuscate. When it rained water poured through everything, even through the switches and plugs. This went on for three years. Long story short, we finally got to mediation and the warranty company discovered that the builder had lied to them and that the builder and real estate agent had lied to us. The warranty company joined our lawsuit against the builder, repaired the house and got their money from the agent and builder. We could not sell the house and for three years no one would repair the house. We were trapped. We had all of our house money tied up in a piece of junk. When it was repaired so that we could honestly fill out the owners disclosure forms and finally get out of it, not one real estate agent in the town would take the listing because they had to work with the proven liar agent. Her broker called every company in town and told them not to take our listing. It was a four year nightmare. That house took 4 years of my life and about made me crazy. During the lawsuit process, we ask the warranty company if they had any unresolved complaints in Texas and with whom? David Weekley had the most. We also found a group called Sick of Bad Builders in Ft. Worth. The stories I heard at those meeting had very well educated and well employeed people crying. The Culls must have proven their case beyond any doubt to have gotten that kind of award. All we wanted or got was the damn house repaired so we could get out of it. The next owners had no problems. You could not give me a new house in Texas. The things we learned about builders and money would curl your hair. They system is set up to blame the buyers, just like most of the contractors on this thread do. Remember, building codes really mean it can't be any worse. The house could be code plus. There are no codes in the burbs. The state says all electrical and plumbing must be done by licensed people, but who inspects? It is all a sham. Perry and Weekly own the governor and half the elected officials and Judges in this State. They build this crap for $50 a foot, sell it for $100. The buyer has to spend the next 15 years fixing the thing. When the storm sewers and roads fall apart in 10 years, the taxpayers are left holding the bag. But hey, Texas has cheap housing.
Remember, building codes really mean it can't be any worse. The house could be code plus. There are no codes in the burbs. The state says all electrical and plumbing must be done by licensed people, but who inspects? It is all a sham. Perry and Weekly own the governor and half the elected officials and Judges in this State. They build this crap for $50 a foot, sell it for $100.
this is where you are wrong, well partially. every builder is required by law to meet codes regardless of where they are building. just because a municipality does not inspect (and the city of houston inspectors are a joke by the way, i deal with them on a daily basis) does not mean the builder doesnt have to build to a code. every builder is required to build to IRC (international residential building codes) which as you state are a "minimum". sure it would be nice if builders built above and beyond, and some do to a point (not production though). as for who inspects, almost every builder has an independent inspector such as dale phillips, or burgess or dean french (there are tons) and every builder i have ever dealt with or seen build have inspections by the engineer through out the construction process.
while you sound like you got a raw deal on your home, i think the question you should have asked the warranty company was not
Quote:
During the lawsuit process, we ask the warranty company if they had any unresolved complaints in Texas and with whom? David Weekley had the most.
but should have been "how many unsolved complaints does the builder we built with have."
the builders do build for low cost, and they do mark up their product substantially but hey its called a business. hell for xmas i gave my sister a $190 bottle of merlot, 2 weeks after we went to a restaurant to celebrate a birthday and looking at the wine list had the same bottle for $580. how much do you think it costs to brew that starbucks? how much do you think it costs micky d's to make your kid a happy meal? its called capitalism and it works!
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