You can't be forced to use builder's lender
One of the federal government's top housing officials has this practical advice for anyone negotiating with a builder to buy a new house: You can always say no.When the builder dangles thousands of dollars of ``free'' upgrades or closing cost discounts in front of you if you'll agree to use the builder's affiliated mortgage lender -- and threatens to withhold those incentives if you get your loan elsewhere -- you don't have to roll over and play dead.

Monday Morning Mold (Mycology) - June 26, 2006

Home Builder "Incentives" to Buyers Under Federal Scrutiny
Have you ever wondered how home builders can offer such generous incentives -- thousands of dollars worth of upgrades, closing cost contributions and other financial goodies -- provided buyers agree to use the builder's affiliated or controlled mortgage company? Are these come-ons legit? ...HUD's Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) investigative staff is interested in possible violations of federal rules in the builder-incentives field.

 Just say no to builder incentives with strings attached
One of the federal government's top housing officials has this practical advice for anyone negotiating with a builder to buy a new house: You can always say no...But federal real-estate settlement rules "require that these incentives be legitimate and not built into the price of the house or the cost of the loan." In other words, builders cannot tempt you with illusory benefits "€” alleged discounts that you're actually paying for somewhere else in the deal.

Forget faulty products: Poor customer service is the worst culprit
Elizabeth Gould is getting her fruit-freezing refrigerator replaced this week at no charge by General Electric, but Alexander Gessen is still waiting for a resolution to his furnace-soot problem with Home Depot...Home Depot, however, was still talking with Gessen last week about what to do. His furnace occasionally spews soot into his home, and no one is quite sure what to do about it. The most severe incident occurred in February and cost $11,000 to clean up.

Martin officials rap Lennar over homeowner gripes
After weeks of hearing homeowners complain about mold, leaky roofing tiles and shoddy workmanship, Martin County officials have had enough. The county has told a national home builder to prove its homes meet county standards, fix the problems, or get out and don't come back.

Firm is failing to pay its carpenters
More than 100 workers at a Scottsdale construction framing company haven't been paid in several weeks, and that has Latino community advocates concerned that some employers are taking advantage of workers...Richmond American Homes...some of the Valley's largest home builders, including Toll Brothers and U.S. Home, which is owned by Lennar Corp.

Home Builder Charged With Deceiving Clients
Nebraska's attorney general Thursday charged an Omaha homebuilder with overbilling a family by $60,000. Tim Brummels of D&R Builders is charged with three counts of theft by deception, three counts of second-degree forgery, and two counts of issuing a bad check.

A Dismal Standard
A veteran builder bemoans the state of the construction industry today
Most of the roughly 1.5 million houses built every year are pieced together in a wasteful, antiquated way that has changed remarkably little in 150 years. While many industries have reinvented themselves, taking advantage of cutting-edge technologies and innovative management styles, home building has not. As a result, new homes are an overly defective product, many of which will be lucky to survive their mortgage...Those who end up in the trades often get there because they ran out of options. My brother is a psychologist who evaluates inmates for a state penal institution. He tells me that at least 75% of the convicted felons he interviews were previously in the construction industry. I've also read that the building trades have the highest industry incidence of drug and alcohol abuse. When all hope and good intention are gone, you always can go out and build somebody's home. With few young people getting into the building trades, many contractors are resorting to day laborers or illegal immigrants or, basically, anyone with a pulse. Most work in the trades today requires no qualifications or training. Read more...

Owners say ''dream'' home became anything but
Sean Regan began noticing problems in his home, near Pretty Lake in Norfolk's Ocean View section, a couple of months after moving in, including doors not closing quite right, cracks appearing in walls and pieces of exterior siding falling off.

Ryan Homes Customer Service 
The workers put a hydraulic jackhammer on the front of their skid steer loader.  In the process of jackhammering the floor out, they jack hammered through our basement wall, which is poured concrete.  They also cracked our outside garage wall in two places. The basement wall is severely damaged.  A section approximately  7 feet X 2 feet is shoved in about 2".  The rest of the wall is cracked on a diagonal the entire length of the wall, with several other smaller cracks coming off that crack.  The reason for the damage is that the concrete workers put the jackhammer chisel between the walls and the floor.  Oh, they also ran into our garage door and door framing with the bobcat... Read more...

Homeowner Construction Fund An Uncertain Road To Recovery
Coral Bay homeowners have reported losing tens of thousands of dollars - $25,000 to $40,000 for deposits alone - and more in twice-paid impact fees and attempts to remove subcontractors' liens. Leonard said recently she and her husband have spent $60,000 beyond their contract with Coral Bay to resolve problems and another $25,000 to have another contractor finish their house in Shady Hills. See homeowner website: Coralbayhomes.com

Rotten houses
Their home was finished in September 2001. That's when the Heredias say their problems really began. "Once we moved in, we started noticing things were wrong," Tom Heredia recalled. "Locks were installed upside down. The lights in the bedroom didn't work. There were cracks in the garage-floor concrete and in the stucco."

Agency has many ties to builders

Consumer groups see the Texas Residential Construction Commission as a puppet of the Texas Association of Builders. The TAB says its interest is simply participation in government, taking advantage of opportunities available to any citizen. But thousands of pages of documents released over the past several months show the keen interest of builders' groups in the agency's workings. Most of the documents came from the state comptroller's office, which conducted an inquiry into the TRCC at the request of state Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless.... Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, introduced a bill last year that would have made the TRCC free to homeowners, required continuing education for builders and allowed the commission to take action against builders who abandoned jobs... "It's the fox guarding the henhouse," Farrar said... See related Reports: Texas Comptroller Condemns TRCC Builder Protection Agency &  WFAA News 8 Report - $1,000 Lunch Scandal

Angry homeowners contend that state agency, complaint process are tilted toward builders"
There are so many problems with the legislation that passed in 2003 it would take us hours to enumerate them," said Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch, an Austin-based consumer-advocacy group. "We need real protections for homeowners so that when they buy a home they know that what they are getting is built to high-quality standards and if it's not, the builder will be held responsible for it." ...State Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, asked the state comptroller's office to look into the agency's effectiveness last year. He said a lot of homeowners have wasted their time and money going through the agency. With the TRCC, consumers face a bureaucratic maze to find their way through before they have an opportunity to hold their builder accountable," Winslow of Texas Watch said. Janet Ahmad of San Antonio, president of Homeowners for Better Building, said the TAB devised the TRCC to create "an ironclad, surefire method of seeing to it that the homeowner was regulated. There was never an incentive for a builder to build the house right the first time."