When it Comes to Building Your Dream Home Do Your Homework!

I began the sketches of my new house in my mind when I was a little girl, it started with Barbie houses and went from there. When I got the opportunity to have a real one built, my husband and I all but jumped at the chance. I felt strongly that the timing was right for us financially and the market was decent. It was late summer so I was in a rush to get something started before the harsh New England winter hit. Buying the land was easy, and finding a contractor wasn’t difficult either…or so I thought.

I had spoken to several contractors over the phone and even met with a few, with winter approaching people were giving us a time frame of anywhere between six to twelve month before the project would be finished. I was in such a rush to get in that I started looking around for contractor that would be able to get us in faster. I was given the name of a local contractor and had a meeting set up that night. The man we met with was the owner and general contractor for a small local construction company that did projects from small home additions to large commercial properties. He was smart and charming and seemed to have all the right answers. After listening to what we wanted, he made a lot of promises and gave us a move in date for four to five months later. After asking for his references and local addresses of his work, we shook hands and left the meeting.

My husband and I planned to check references and visit work sites the next day, but my mind was already made up. We did visit two sites, one of them we already knew of with being from around the same area, we never did call those references. We signed a contract the next night. Our construction project began a few weeks later, and things were going fairly smoothly…that first few weeks would be the only time things went right, in what would turn out to be a two year nightmare that will affect my family for a very long time.

To make an impossibly long story short, whatever could go wrong, did. Our problems began before a single piece of wood was dropped on our property. The smooth talking contractor and the excavator started by placing the house in the wrong spot on our land. They put it too close to our well, that in turn made it difficult to design the septic system. Then the foundation was poured and the house was built ten feet too low, meaning that instead of digging a cellar hole to pour a foundation into, they were suppose to bring in ten feet of fill to meet the appropriate grade of the land. Because of this error, we were not able to have a septic tank installed because, well…we know what doesn’t roll up hill. Being unable to flush toilets up a ten to fifteen foot hill, we had to have the house lifted up off the foundation, a second foundation poured on top of the existing foundation, and then the house placed back on top of that new foundation.

For a short time we were the only ones I know of that had a 2,300 square foot mobile home! People we knew would come over to see our house sitting in our front yard while the new foundation set, yes, I had my almost finished home sitting in the front yard. I could go on for pages about all the things we went through because of this, from having to rent an apartment for a year, to repainting the inside of the house because the walls cracked. With the advice of friends, family, and a good attorney, we fired the contractor before we had the house lifted. We figured if the thing had to be moved to fix the problems we might want to hire someone that could at least work a tape measure. I made a few desperate calls to other local contractor and ended up telling my story to one of the original contractors I had talked to over a year before. He was willing to take over the problem, and about $100,000 and a calendar year later, we finally moved into that dream home. Looking back I know that we have no one to blame but ourselves. We didn’t check references, talk to past clients, or research the company. Half way through our fiasco I started to do some deep digging about this contractor and his company. Not surprisingly, there had been criminal activity ranging from real estate fraud and tax evasion, to theft and filing false home appraisals to dupe new home buyers. I also found that he had owned several other businesses and basically folded those when the law started to catch up with him. Ironically, a few weeks after I got him to sign the form voiding our contract, he went to jail.

It’s difficult for me to think that if we had only done our homework in advance we would have found out the truth. I didn’t need to hire an investigator or even an attorney, I found most of my information on the Internet. I started with the Better Business Beareu for our area, of course there were strikes against him there too. They were able to tell me that other clients had made complaints and what those complaints were. I also would recommend the Home Builders Association in a shoppers area, and of course plain old Internet search engines like Yahoo and Google work wonders as well. After Googling the builders name I was able to find criminal activity dating back six and seven years and what his sentences were. It’s important that you talk to people who have done business with the company. Call prior clients, ask if they were happy with the work and with the team. Were they given any guarantees? Did they need further work after their project completion? Ask questions about how the company deals with conflict resolution, hidden fees and costs, do they guarantee their work for an extended period of time? Would they hire them again? Research individuals in the company as well as the company as a whole if you are able to, and also very important is visiting work sites, actually go drive by houses and project that the company has completed, or ask to be taken through a project that is unfinished. The town or city hall that you are planning to build in can also be a good resource. Ask if they have ever heard of the company? Ever done business with them, and if so how did that go?

It’s important to me that people be super cautious and hyper aware when it comes to finding the right company or contractor. It’s an incredible investment, and something to be taken very seriously. Slow down, take your time, there really is no rush. I was so excited and so desperate to get my house done that I didn’t stop to check out the guy that was doing it. My four month project quickly became a twenty four month ordeal, and my family will never get that time or money back. We’ve been in the house for ten months now, and love it more and more everyday. I’ve stayed in contact with the builder that bailed us out, and will be forever indebted to him for what he did. If you and your family decide to build a house give yourself the time to slowdown and do it right, when you’re sitting back with your family in your new living room, you’ll be glad you did.