Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/07/2022

  Type:Delivery Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I am retiring from the military after twenty-two years and contracted with **** Builders for a new home. Per the New Construction Purchase and Sale Agreement (para 4.A.), the original closing date was to be 05JAN22. According to Addendum 1 to the New Construction Agreement (line item 11), "delays to be 60 calendar days. If they are septic lots delays to be 90 calendar days." Ours is a septic lot. 90 days from the contracted closing date was 04APR22. We sold our old home on 20JAN22 based on the 15FEB22 closing date that was given in Closing Date Amendment #1. We did not receive Closing Date Amendment #2, which extended closing to 15APR, until 03FEB22, two weeks after we sold. We were able to negotiate with our buyers to stay in the old home until 17MAR22, at which time were forced to find other lodging. We are a family of three with two dogs so Air B&Bs were the most appropriate option. We finally closed on the new house on 06JUN22. **** Builders has flatly refused to reimburse us for any lodging costs accrued past the contracted 90-day delay threshold (04APR-06JUN). The language of the Purchase and Sale Agreement and its Addendum are clear. We are seeking your help to recoup the approximately $16,000 we paid to Air B&Bs. Thank you for your time and assistance.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/21/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2022/06/10) */ The vinyl siding that is placed on the house is the same color as the vinyl soffits the buyers chose. The floor plan the buyers chose all have vinyl in the same location. This is nothing new on this floor plan. There is not an error that was made by **** Home Builders. We have "facia metal color" and "soffit" color, not a "vinyl exterior" selection that we allowed the buyers to choose. The selection sheet is attached with the buyer's signature. The selection sheet clearly states that selections are not guaranteed and shows that they did not pick a vinyl color. The contract might not have been fully explained to Mr. ***** ****. In reference to the Buyer's claims, Number 6. Lines XXX-XXX apply to situations when materials are changed. Lines XXX-XXX -Seller expressly reserves the right to make such changes 224 or substitutions in the construction of the home: 225 (a) as may be required, authorized, or approved by governmental agencies having jurisdiction therefore, without the 226 Buyer's consent; 227 (b) as Seller may deem appropriate so long as materials of equal or better quality are used, without the Buyer's 228 consent; and/or... As bolded and underlined, this applies to any new construction home that **** Home Builders or any builder constructs from the ground up. The seller does not have to get consent or inform the buyer of any selection changes. Along with the selection sheet adding that selections are not guaranteed. The new construction purchase and sale agreement contract was adopted and reconstructed many times to accommodate these occurrences. Changing of materials has happened in the past without buyer's consent due to material factors. Every year this business gets more unpredictable, hence the attorney's reasoning for these changes in our contracts. The section that Mr. ***** **** pointed out was lines XXX-XXX. This only applies to the decorative selections being made. This is only a fragment of this section. Here reads the full section as follows: "Buyer understands that 239 it is Buyer's responsibility to make all selections on or before 3/26/2021 and further understands that if 240 the selections have not been made by said date, that Seller may give Buyer notice of such missing selections and the choices 241 made by Seller. Seller choices are hereby deemed agreed to and acceptable to Buyer after three (3) days of given notice." Again, respectfully, this section does not apply to the availability and craftsmanship of the build, but the decorative selections that were chosen, which excludes vinyl. Even if it included vinyl, **** Home Builders can still, per contract, change the selections without buyer's consent. The delays in new construction are inevitable. These delays can be caused by covid related matters- to include materials, workers, inspections, equipment, and the main factor is availability. **** Home Builders has been struggling to get in garage doors, appliances, countertops, cabinets, light fixtures, flooring, drywall, paint, doors, brick, septic tank/septic tank parts, doorknobs, plumbing materials, and much more. **** Home Builders has also had to wait on inspections from different city/county/state departments. This includes septic tank permits, permits to build, delays from the banks to start the construction (construction loan delays), electrical, plumbing, framing, termite letters, and many more that impact not only the completion of the home but the timeline of completion. The completion time,is on line 174. It states 05JAN22, however, if the house is not completed it cannot close. The extra 90 days that are allotted to **** Home Builders via the addendum 1 that was mentioned plus the 60 days on the covid amendment/addendum puts **** Home Builders within our time frame. The buyers fail to recognize the 60 days on the Covid amendment, giving a total of 150 day delay. Granted, there were 2 extra days, for a total of 152 days, however the agent sent extensions that the buyer and seller agreed to. If at any point in time the buyer wanted to be released from the contract, **** Home Builders would have done so. There was communication on the home completion being delayed between the agents. Sellers and listing agents (**** *******) are not allowed to communicate directly with the Buyer. Buyers and sellers have no direct communication, per the terms of the contract and associated documents that were signed by both parties. Communication can only go through the listing agent to the buyer's agent. The seller and listing agent have no control over what is then communicated from the buyer's agent to the buyer. The buyers can only have contact with the agent that they chose to hire. At no time was any party dismissive, they were purely following the terms of the contract and acted well within their rights and obligations set forth by said contract. When a buyer purchases a home, there are documents to sign stating that the buyer takes the home as is at the date both buyer and seller agreed upon via extensions. There have been many instances that happened since the covid era, which is not over, that made buyers have to move elsewhere temporarily. However, nowhere does it state reimbursement for the monies spent by the buyer. The contract on the home could have been extended to accommodate the extensions. A buyer/buyer's agent should always check the status of the home to gauge the closing/completion of the house. We do apologize for the inconveniences that are caused by these delays. **** Home Builders also incurs extra fees and costs associated with extending contracts, typically thousands of dollars for each month. We don't charge any fees that we endure and will not pay any monies towards unforeseen circumstances. Building homes in this day and age can be very unpredictable. The job is finished and we hope that you enjoy your home. Attached for reference is: The Contract with addendum 1 showing the 90 day delay Covid amendment showing the 60 day delay Selection sheet Picture of other homes with the vinyl in the same location Consumer Response /* (3000, 9, 2022/06/18) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) The rebuttal for the vinyl is muddled. It states that we were not "allowed" to choose exterior vinyl while going on to say that "the selection sheet... shows that we did not pick a vinyl color." Were we not allowed or did we not choose? Which is it? We didn't choose exterior vinyl because we were never given the choice. Are we supposed to believe that it is standard practice to give customers the choice of soffit and not exterior vinyl color? If we were not being "allowed" to choose, why wasn't that communicated to us? What was the reason behind our not being allowed? Is it only this floor plan that isn't being allowed to choose? If we go to the other homes in the neighborhood, will they tell us that they weren't allowed to choose either? The rebuttal included "pictures of other homes with the vinyl in the same location." Were we supposed to have walked the neighborhood and scrutinized similar builds ourselves to find this out? Exterior vinyl wasn't ever mentioned during selections and the documents are consistently unclear that actual vinyl will go on the vertical surface of the home. Giving customers the choice of exterior brick while failing to mention exterior vinyl gives reasonable expectation that the home's exterior is all brick. By their rationale, **** could have decided to forego brick altogether, make the whole exterior vinyl and choose the color themselves. Our listing agent did have multiple conversations with **** employees regarding the exterior vinyl. During those conversations, employees admitted they had forgotten to ask us about the vinyl during selections. Granted, these were verbal admissions, so we can't produce documentation. But I can say for sure that no one ever mentioned that exterior vinyl color selection was not being allowed- otherwise we would have known about it before now. If, from the beginning, the choice really was not being allowed, why are we only finding out about it now, in the rebuttal to a BBB complaint? Granted, delays in new construction are sometimes inevitable. However, ****'s listing agent, **** *******, was aggressively non-communicative about possible delays and the home's status in general. At the final walkthrough, the foreman told us and our agent that he could have given us a good closing projection back in January. However, per the terms of the contract, we were not allowed to communicate with the foreman. Conversations had to be between our agent and Mr. *******. Our agent consistently requested status updates, stressing that our not being informed would result in financial hardship that would only intensify as time went by. Mr. ******* consistently failed to provide any of the requested information. This resulted in our selling the old home based on the timeline we were given, which led to our having to secure Air B&Bs for about two and half months. The rebuttal states the "A buyer/buyer's agent should always check the status of the home to gauge the closing/completion of the house." I'm curious how we were supposed to do that when our only avenue for such information was ****'s own non-communicative listing agent. If neither we nor our agent were allowed to speak to anyone else, the responsibility of communicating much-needed, often requested information, falls squarely on Mr. *******. The rebuttal says that "at no time was any party dismissive." Would negligent have been a better word? "We do apologize for the inconveniences that are caused by these delays." This is an understatement and makes it sound like the "inconveniences" were "inevitable," when, in fact, they could have been easily avoided had certain people been doing their job. The statement that "If at any point in time the buyer wanted to be released from the contract, **** Home Builders would have done so" is telling. Is that the choice? Take what you're given or lose your home? Business Response /* (4000, 13, 2022/07/20) */ we provided our response previously and consider this matter closed