Home builder repair hell

Hi,

I know this is the bob villa group and all... not the complaint group but i could sure use some of bob villas help right about now. If anyone posting here can take a look at my friends pictures: (click on photos once you get to the site)

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and give me their "professional opinion" on the drywall... the hardwood floors... the doorjams/stain I would be deeply grateful (and would also travel to a website and try and help you if i can). Huge mistakes have been made (you can only see the "cosmetic" ones from the photos) and we need as many opinions as we can get. Please post any comments to the guestbook?

Thanks in advance,

TNChief

Reply to
thetnchief
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Bob V is useless

Reply to
Ugly

No thanks. I clicked on the first link to see the pictures, and agree the stuff doesn't look very good, but your behavior is nothing more than retaliation done in a childish way.

I would imagine that you will have another law suit on your hands with you as defendant. The lawyers are the only ones that win when people approach problems in this manner. Any judge seeing your nonsense will view you as a PIA and take that into account. That's kind of a shame because the pictures would lead one to believe that you were in the right. You are not helping yourself.

An adult that is old enough to enter into a contract should know there are right and wrong ways to behave. I'm disappointed that you chose the latter.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

If this was my home, I'd be heartbroken. These builders are not only unskilled, they simply don't care about the quality of their work. They get the cheapest material, hammer, paint and run. As for lawsuits against you, the homeowner, I suspect the letter from R was written by a builder of some sort who gets many complaints, maybe some legit, probably lots not, and he's fed up with everyone. I think your complaints are well founded, but you're probably on your own repairing things. Good Luck!

Reply to
conneticat

You look like an ambulance chaser. Wanting to sue everyone that has done you wrong. Be real careful, you have not demonstrated that this company did the work described in the photo's. I look forward to reading the AP report on this lawsuit

John

Reply to
runsrealfast

All I can say is what I say to people with ludicrous haircuts .......

"You paid money for THAT?"

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

Extremely poor craftsmanship. The drywall can be fixed by removing the tape and redoing it. The floor and door are not structural problems. OTOH, the concrete work might be. I would expect those cracks to leak like crazy and possible to break through (second foundation photo).

Didn't you do an inspection before taking final possession on it? Didn't you check on the progress as it was going on? Yes, the builder did a lousy job, but so did you for taking possession instead of dealing with the problems earlier!

Mike D.

Reply to
Mike Dobony

I had a contractor do similarly bad work; only he also substituted cheaper windows than the contract called for, charged extra when he found he couldn't cut corners as hoped, decided the plans were silly for requiring tyvek, etc. I sued him and recovered about a quarter of the damages; barely enough to cover the legal fees. The judge stated that I should not have expected a contractor to do work properly!

The website might be the better approach.

Reply to
Toller

As would I.

A lot of people would call you an asshole for making a comment like that, but I'll give you the respect and refrain from doing that. The OP asked for professional opinions. I am a professional and I gave him my opinion. He even thanked me in advance.

The OP is attempting to "get even" with the builder through some childish retaliation. Printing bumper stickers bashing the builder is not an appropriate way for adults to behave. He's one of those idiots that puts a first amendment "warning" on the web site in the ridiculous belief that that entitles him to say anything at all. It doesn't.

You are right about one thing. I'm fed up - fed up with people acting like children. I expect adults to act like adults and don't put up with whining from kids or adults.

I think the OP's issues with the construction are probably valid, but his way of dealing with the problem isn't.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Are you saying that abusing someone on the internet is a way to get them to cooperate? That can't be right. Are you saying that abusing someone on the internet and bashing them with bumper stickers is a way to get them to want to fix stuff on your house? That can't be right either. What are you saying?

As far as your own experiences, you learned an expensive lesson. I had the luxury of working for others as a construction manager in the early part of my career so my learning wasn't on my dime and I had big time experience show me the ropes.

I have a clause in my contract that states that the prevailing party gets court costs and legal fees. The clients' lawyers _love_ that clause - they figure if I mess up I'm toast. I _love_ that clause because I don't mess up. Keeps everyone honest. I have lots of other clauses that protect my interests.

I'm not sure who was responsible for supervising your project, but as soon as the cheaper windows were delivered to the site they should have been rejected. The other nonsense was just nonsense, obviously, and your contractor apparently felt he could do what he liked. Effective supervision would have eliminated that concept from your builder's mind. Then the builder would have had the choice to walk away and get spanked, or stick around and live up to the contract. In tough situations it may be better to negotiate a settlement so both parties can part ways more or less amicably - you _definitely_ don't want a hostile contractor working on your house under duress.

Oh, and as I'm sure you are aware, the judge you mentioned was an idiot. Judges are not immune from accountability. You should have filed complaints with the bar association, your congressman, Channel

12 news, etc. NY has this:
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The OP is also an idiot. There are really only two flavors. The first is the type that invests huge amounts of time and effort in something that doesn't pay to anything else but their ego. It won't make them whole. Once the project hits the skids you're in damage control territory. First rule of damage control is to limit the damage and stop it from growing. Investing time in a losing endeavour doesn't help. Feeding on the anger and outrage doesn't help. Those things end up making you and yours miserable. Life's too short for that.

The second flavor of idiot - and I'm half convinced that the OP is this type - starts as the first but has a marketing angle. Printing up bumper stickers, starting up numerous web sites (why would you need more than one?), etc., points towards someone who with only a little bit of a push would turn into a spammer. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that the OP starts spamming these newsgroups with his hate sites and will make money off of Google AdSense, click-throughs or something like that.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Well, probably not, but legal action didn't seem to work.

To be sure! I actually won, so I would have gotten legal fees.

I complained about every problem as they occurred. After I complained about a dozen or so items, and the contractor just ignored me, my lawyer advised me to stop protesting it and just document everything. His reasoning was that the house was torn open (this was an addition) winter was coming and we had a newborn. If the contractor got angry enough to refuse to finish, he could put a lien on that would prevent me from doing anything for a year or two. I might ultimately win, but it would be a disasterous win. That turned out to be bad advice; the judge thought I had an obligation to object more. Of course, the lawyer might have been right; the alternative was pretty bad also.

He actually fell asleep at one point. My lawyer thought any action would be counterproductive. On that he was right. 15 years later I had a case that was literally 250 times larger than the house suit go to appeals court; my future kinda depended on it. Guess who one of the judges on the appeals court was. This time he ruled for me. It doesn't pay to make enemies.

Reply to
Toller

That's because the OP is trying to correct his mistakes legally, after the fact, when he should have corrected them contractually and logistically before work was started. I'm not talking about the contractor's mistakes, I'm talking about the OP's mistakes.

I think that we should hold an immediate grassroots peoples' referendum and insist that _all_ contracts and _all_ lawsuits automatically include "prevailing party gets legal fees and court costs". It would free up about 60% of the court's time, people would act line grown ups and learn to seek to agree, and there wouldn't be so many of these newsgroup retaliation posts. Only one problem - every lawyer in the country would fight it tooth and nail, and a large proportion of politicians are lawyers so there'd be no help there.

Your lawyer had it ass backwards. You probably signed the contractor's contract, right? Did you have your lawyer review it? I don't know if that would have made a difference with what you're saying about your lawyers attitude, but if your lawyer had written up the contract and protected your ass-ets, you'd have been able to fire the guy for breach of contract, would have had the contractor sign lien waivers as the work progressed, and would have had all of the court costs, legal fees and lien indemnification included in the contract.

Putting a lien on the house does not prevent you from having someone else complete the work. It messes up your finances a bit and it can get messy, but no one would expect you to live in a holey shack because a contractor cut corners and didn't want to live up to the contract.

Golf buddies?

Oh, so he got it wrong twice? ;)

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Do NOT sign any 3rd party warranty. It will have a binding arbitration agreement in it and take away your right to sue. Most are worthless and just prevent you from sueing the builder.

Reply to
Art

Explain to me how posting examples of someone's poor workmanship is abuse?

Reply to
Art

I would be surprised if any of the poor craftsmanship would be against any codes which means you probably can't win in court. they obviously suck at drywall & staining which are both pretty much arts. I have been in construction for over 20 years & I still suck at drywall, if its a job bigger than a small hole to patch I know enough to get someone else to do it! everything in the pictures is fixable with a little bit of elbow grease. only advice i could offer is to never pay in full until you are satisfied with the results. good luck with your suits, although I feel you could have everything repaired cheaper than your lawyers fees will be.

Reply to
longshot

Although that sounds like a nice idea on the surface, It's oversimplistic.

Consider the scenario of an average Joe who has a reasonable claim against a corporate giant (or anybody with deep pockets). No one would ever sue someone with the capacity to purchase a huge team of high-powered attorneys, because the possibility of a loss would devastating.

Court costs? Sure. Maybe provide judges with some latitude to impose punitive damages for frivolous claims

-Steve

Reply to
Stephen M

Explain to me how printing up bumper stickers saying a someone's company sucks isn't abuse.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Who posted the above? You or me?

Maybe we should get the lawyers involved in drafting it up so it will lose its simplicity. ;)

It would eliminate the "well, I almost have a case" lawsuits which shouldn't be in court in the first place. But, you're right, there should be efforts to minimize lawyers milking cases and their ridiculous billing hours. How this transition would happen, I don't know - it's like asking the fox guarding the hen house how to get rid of the fox problem.

Why should the suit have to be frivolous to get court costs?

R
Reply to
RicodJour

You are right about that also. I didn't go to a lawyer until things started to ball up; my architect said the contract was reasonably standard and reasonable. I thought the fact that he violated his own contract would be important, but it didn't matter to the judge.

I don't know (or want to know, at this point) the fine points of contractor law, but my lawyer was a partner at a major firm and I followed his advice. Of course, it is only the judge's opinion that matters.

Reply to
Toller

Your example is irrelevant to the discussion. We are not talking bumper stickers.

Reply to
Art

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