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When I moved to TN I stayed on military housing till we found a place to live. In this case I bought the house in April to move into the home in JUNE while the builder would rent it from me. We got a super good deal and even bought our rate down so in order to keep the rate we had to close by a certain time (april).
The house that i bought was actually his model home, so it had all his furniture and work items in the house. He guaranteed me that the home would be brand new when we move in; unfortunately, that is not the case. Its like pulling teeth to try and get this guy to do work on our home.
Another thing too, if it would make any difference is that I used a VA loan and another realtor (the guy who suggested i send him a certified letter) told me that a 1 year home builders warranty is mandatory for VA loans.
Lacerta, I work all day and by the time i get home all those workers are gone. But really i shouldnt have to do that, why can't people do what's right? I dont like that kind of work ethic.
But my certified letter states that he will have 30 days to complete all the fixings in the house. Then I was thinking if he didnt comply i would file a complaint with BBB and the VA (possibly take him off the VA preferred list?).
I wish I wouldve been more aggressive in the beginning to ensure it was all to be completed prior to moving in, but i took his word that the home would in brand new condition within 2 months of moving in. It's been 6 months and not to much has been done.
I'll share with you one thing that really pissed me off with this guy, in July he put up the posts and railings for my backyard fence. Then in August he laid out all the boards in my back yard. 2 weeks later he takes up all the boards (I am watching them from my hearth room) and he puts it in his truck and installs in on a home down the street! That really ticked me off. Then in October he put a pallet of boards in my backyard and it hasnt moved since then. I just want to get this all taken cared off.
Of course you shouldn't have to do that. But you already said that the normal channels weren't getting you anywhere. I was just trying to let you know a possible alternative.
Filing with the BBB isn't a bad thing, but don't expect it to get you anywhere. The BBB doesn't really do anything, just send a letter, which he will probably ignore. I don't know about the VA, if there is a risk of being taken of a VA preferred builder list, that might have some weight in it.
We always thought a 1 year builders warranty was both standard and required by (my) state's law. We recently found out that is not true. I know several builders who do not offer any sort of warranty at all.
The fence thing, as you described it, would really tick me off too. That alone would make me want to get this guy in as much trouble as possible. I know someone here who stood out on a corner with a sign for about 8 hours a day for a month (obviously out of work) telling anyone who would listen about the way he was treated by a local builder here in town. He literally made that his whole life for a full month. Obviously if you have a job, that isn't an option, but it did make a point.
Don't fall for the one year warrantee story. By law they are warrantee for ten years. Our builder tried to get us to believe the one year lie, but our attorney straightened him out.. I spend 16 years in a class action defective construction lawsuit and learned every dirty trick you can imagine. I would never trust any builder again. We bought from a big name builder with a great reputation. Turned out he didn't even have a license, it was borrowed from someone else, and they used labor picked up at the corner. All they cared about was money, quality or customer service was the very last thing on their mind.
When we got involved, our attorney told us the suits usually last from 12 to 18 months. Ours lasted over 16 years. We had to put our lives on hold for those years. It was hell, but we finally came out good. Get an attorney that specializes in defective construction.
Don't fall for the one year warrantee story. By law they are warrantee for ten years. Our builder tried to get us to believe the one year lie, but our attorney straightened him out.. I spend 16 years in a class action defective construction lawsuit and learned every dirty trick you can imagine. I would never trust any builder again. We bought from a big name builder with a great reputation. Turned out he didn't even have a license, it was borrowed from someone else, and they used labor picked up at the corner. All they cared about was money, quality or customer service was the very last thing on their mind.
When we got involved, our attorney told us the suits usually last from 12 to 18 months. Ours lasted over 16 years. We had to put our lives on hold for those years. It was hell, but we finally came out good. Get an attorney that specializes in defective construction.
There absolutely is no "10 year warranty" unless a company voluntarily offers it. No law mandates it, unless it is a specific law in your state. Not all states mandate ANY warranty period for builders. Warranties longer than 1 year are typically offered by a product manufacturer, such as the roof, or the siding, for defective materials only.
Also, not all states require builders to HAVE a license, or even be registered in any way.
Casual labor is acceptable for some jobs. We use it for some of the grunt work, like digging holes for plants or moving rock or bark, as well as keeping the lot cleaned up during construction, and sweeping up debris. So depending on what the labor "picked up on the corner" was used for, that might not be a problem either.
the support of warranty is only as good as the financial and ethics that support that builder - as we have seen with plenty of local builders like Wilmik Homes - out of work and out of ethics means no warranty.
Check to see if your state has a Contractor's Board of Registration / Licensure where complaints can be filed. In absence of such an administrative board, you need an attorney to explain the builder's warranty law, if there is one, in your state. Plain and simple. On any unfinished home, you should always hold money in escrow at closing for repairs, completions or upgrades that need to be done according to your contract. If you try to handle this yourself, you could be wasting precious time within which you have to pursue a claim.
Okay a little update for those of you who care. Well the builder got my registered letter on 22 November, and the only thing that he did was put up half of our fence.
I left 22 December for vacation and returned 03 January with nothing else done on the house. On 07 January I filed a complaint with BBB and Consumer Affairs of TN. The builder called my wife frantically wanting to set up an appointment to do a walk through and everything. So we set something up for this saturday (15 Jan).
It's been 10+ months and I really didnt want to take it this far. My next step was to get estimates for all the repairs and then move on to finding an attorney.
Well we'll see how this goes because the builder has pretty much been non responsive all this time.
I'm suprised he's wanting to do something because on the BBB and consumer affairs site it states that they can't make the business do anything so maybe I was thinking he didnt want a blemish on his record.
If he does fix everything to our satisfaction should i still file a complaint or should i tell them that they resolved it and that's that? I've heard stories that this guy has done this to older couples and that totally pisses me off. So now i guess i'm doin this for all the folks he'd done wrong but i'm wondering if I should provide some kind of feedback on their (BBB/consumer affairs) sites so other people will have a general idea of this business' practice.
Another quick update. One of the realtors who work in our neighborhood called me yesterday and told us that our home builder called him and was really mad at him. Our builder told the realtor to stay out of his business and i guess our builder was just super irate. Well, if it wasnt for the realtor I wouldnt have made the appointment to get everything fixed, every day I find more and more reasons to dislike this guy. The realator felt sorry for us that the builder walked all over us and suggested that i send him the registered letter and everything but it was my decision to file a claim with the BBB and consumer affairs.
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