Think of building a house as childbirth. Horrible experience, but worth it at the end.

Think of building a house as childbirth. Horrible experience, but worth it at the end.

In most cases it definitely is worth it. I love my house. However if problems go beyond the normal, its more like giving birth to Rosemary's baby.

Don't eat the chocolate mouse.

Thanks for the sympathy. It does help to know we're not alone, although I really don't want anyone else to go through this. We have spoken with a construction lawyer. We decided that a lawsuit would hold up the build further, something that we really don't want. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the cabinets. The next couple of weeks will be telling.

@Kathy sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope everything runs smoothly for you in the end. We have had issues riddle our build too. Seems like anything that has a motor has broken down! Best wishes on getting your trim and cabinets soon!

Update: The painters were able to paint almost all of the exterior and prime the interior before the trim guys came in like gangbusters this weeks. They are doing a great job and I love the color.

We did notice a problem with the tile. When my husband brought it to our builder's attention, he asked why we didn't notice it sooner. Ugh.

Also...confirmation that our builder is in financial trouble, he asked us to put the down payment on the garage door, even though the door is included in the price of the house.

Last week I emailed the cabinet guy asking him when the cabinets would go in. He has them scheduled to come in the first week of December, which is 2-4 weeks after we expected. The builder didn't know that because he mentioned to my husband today that he would have to check and see when the cabinets were coming in.

The landscaper came today. Apparently our builder has been telling him for the past few months that we would need him in a few weeks. There is so much junk strewn around our yard from construction that it's going to take a while to clean up.

The bank is putting some pressure on the builder to finish before the 1 year mark and they think that he will come through. I think he can, but he will need to be more proactive with ordering things.

Now the builder is telling us we owe money for extra exterior trim that we thought was included in the build price and he did not tell us before it was installed that it would cost extra. We don't know how much extra he's going to ask for, but any additional cost that we didn't agree to in writing before it was installed really is on him. At this point in the build it's kind of like extortion because we are nearing the finish, but he has the power to bring the build to a halt until we pay. Hope it's not too much.

Following. Sorry to hear, this sounds so distressing.

Kathy this guy im a complete nightmare! If you do not pay he could hold things up is right. demand to see the bill. This build cannot end soon enough for you. I am so sorry you have had to endure constant issues because of him. I feel so bad!

Someone made a great comment to hire an inspector to identify any potential issues

We've talked to lawyers and inspectors and are very much involved with the build, so we're taking care of issues as they arise. Our framing issues happened when we were living in Florida and were under the mistaken impression that our builder would make sure the house was built correctly. Now our biggest problems are with delays and our builder asking us to pay for stuff that we shouldn't be responsible for.

"Now our biggest problems are with delays and our builder asking us to pay for stuff that we shouldn't be responsible for."

Is this trim in the contract? How much $ are you speaking of? It may be better in the long run to pay him and get the job finished. The delay may end up costing you much more than the trim would have.

Millworkman, I agree with you. It may be worth it to just pay for it and avoid more delays. I just worry that paying for stuff like this that wasn't agreed upon in advance and has already been done sets dangerous precedent and effectively alters the contract, giving him an excuse to bill us for all kinds of other stuff that isn't specifically mentioned in the contract.

Regarding the wording of the contract in regards to exterior trim, the contract just says 'exterior trim according to plan'. So it has to look like the blueprints. The blueprints do show some wider trim around windows on the front of the house as well as trim around decorative vents. With the other windows, it's not obvious if there is extra trim or not just by looking at the blueprints. He says that because we chose windows with J channels, we had to have window trim that wasn't included in the contract price, which was based on not needing additional trim around the windows. So that's a gray area. Even if it was obvious that there was no exterior window trim included in the price of the house, the pricing of the overage should have been disclosed to us before the work was done. That wording is in the contract AND we are supposed to pay for that overage BEFORE work starts. We have overages on HVAC, electrical, brick, cabinets, etc. that were all agreed to before the work was done. So this one is different. We didn't agree on a price, the trim was installed, and now we're being told it's extra. Sounds kind of sleazy to me.

"We didn't agree on a price, the trim was installed, and now we're being told it's extra. Sounds kind of sleazy to me."

I agree. But it comes to the point to where you have to ask yourself if this is "the hill you want to die on." You also have to ask yourself what you would have done IF he'd come to you beforehand and had explained that your choice of windows was going to necessitate the trim. Would you have agreed then to pay it? How substantial of an amount are we even talking? A few hundred bucks or a few thousand?

Personally, if it's just a few hundred, it would probably be worth it to me to be able to get this guy out of my life the quickest way possible. I've dealt with more than a few of these type of people and have learned the hard way over the years many times. But with each experience comes education (sometimes pricey education, though!).

That stinks Kathy! So this builder is paying for everything with his own cash and then you are paying him? Or does he technically own the home until you close? Just trying to get a better understanding. Hope the trim isn’t super costly. Our windows also had a j channel. We had to pay extra for a j channel filler on our windows So that the trim would look better

Shead, I agree with you...we do want this guy out of our lives ASAP, so depending on how much he's asking for, it may very well be worth it to just give him the money and keep the build going. We still don't know how much he's asking for.

We own the land that the house is being built on. The builder is paid by the bank that holds our construction loan. He's paid on a draw schedule after he completes various stages of the house. The bank technically owns the house now, but we've been paying off the balance on the loan. The builder should have enough from the draws to pay for the next stage of construction.....PROVIDED that he doesn't use the money from our house to pay for the other house he's building. But who are we kidding?

Oh my! So you aren't paying him, the bank is essentially handling it! I guess ours is a little different. We pay and then tell our lender; who then puts the money into the account. Or we can tell our lender first and then write the check. But that also means that we have checks going everywhere..... our builder/contractor, the lumberyard, the subs etc... Interesting how different things are elsewhere. Best of luck Kathy. I love your trim though. Is that the work of the guy you are struggling with or someone he subbed out?

What we did is talk to our bank and our bank would not release any monies until we signed off because the builder was saying things were done that weren’t. He was using our draws to finance his other builds

K H Thanks. The trim is the work of the subs, who are hired by our builder. Our builder hasn't been to the house in a month.

Someone from the bank goes out to the house when our builder requests a draw to make sure the work he wants money for was done.

cpartist, good idea. I looked up our builder's other permits on Build Zoom, and it looks like only has one other active build. We are about to get into the expensive materials phase, so I hope he has the funds to handle it.

OK...We're talking $2000 plus $675 of masonry work that we've already paid the subcontractor. We most definitely will not be paying twice for the masonry. We may touch base with our lawyer for advice on the $2000.

How can you have foundation and house framed, etc but no septic yet? The septic needs to go out through the foundation, walls, etc. Are they going to dig a hole through your basement floor? Our septic was one of the first things done, even before the basement was poured to insure all of the drains were in their proper places so we didn't need to dig up the concrete later on.

Ouch, that seems like a lot. Sounds like he's trying to gig you for some other expenses he occurred along the way :/

We are on raised slab. The water table is too high here for a basement. All of the plumbing was run before the concrete was poured. We had the septic done last month so we're good there.

Just an update on the house. We're now one year from breaking ground and are probably looking at 6 weeks to finish. The finish electrical was done a few weeks ago, HVAC passed final inspection, and we have cabinets and countertops. Everything is looking great, and that makes it very painful to see so little left to do, but our builder still not moving to finish it. Last month he said that 'for sure' we'd be finished by the end of January. We are well into January now. He extended the building permit until March. He's been saying since last Friday that he was going to order the plumbing fixtures. He still hasn't done it and it will take a week from the time he orders the fixtures until they come in. We thought perhaps he has cashflow problems, so we suggested that if that was the case, we might be able to work something out to get them ordered. He didn't bite on that. We will be lucky if he gets the finish plumbing in by the end of the month.

The builder took a $60K draw on our construction loan and said he needed to pay off the lumber supply place. Makes me wonder where he's getting the money to purchase flooring and appliances. He said he has two other active builds, so maybe from them?

I am sooooo ready to be finished with this. Hopefully living in this beautiful house will help erase the terrible memories of the building experience.

The builder is just now ordering the plumbing fixtures, so we will be waiting another week and a half at least for that.

@Kathy sorry to hear this. Our one year will be March but alas our septic tank was sold out from under us and now we can't get one close. We also have a major ice storm that hit yesterday so who knows when we can get the septic in. I don't know what our gc was doing when it was beautiful out this summer and fall. Why couldn't he have prioritized that?

@K H Sorry to hear that. I know how frustrating that is. Makes you wonder what the heck you're paying the builder for.

Best I can tell, the only thing our builder does is hire subcontractors and pay for them and the materials. There's no quality control. He doesn't clean up the job site. The port-a-potty guy comes out more often than our builder, sad to say. I honestly don't think our builder cares about our build at all. According to him, he's got two other houses going, started after ours. You'd think he'd want to get ours done because we're being so persistent and probably annoying the heck out of him, but maybe he's keeping it slow to spite us...who knows?

We went to Lowe's today...partly because we wanted to make sure that the toilets made it on the order list and partly because we wanted to verify that the order was placed. To our disappointment but not surprise, neither occurred. I had been excited about finally being finished within the next six weeks, but in light of the likelihood that we won't have finish plumbing until February, I'm starting to worry that the projected March completion won't even occur.

Your builder is doing what ours did and is still doing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. In fact on the houses he’s doing now the super admitted the builder owes all the subs a lot of money. I’m just glad my house is done

I'm glad I'm not one of those subs.

Yes, well we just found out that he owes the siding guy $700, and our house is the only one he's done for our builder. Also...regarding that extra money for the exterior trim around the windows....we've been stalling and haven't paid the builder for it. Good thing. The siding guy told my husband today that he did not charge our builder extra for it.

I do feel bad for the subcontractors.

The best I can tell from BuildZoom, our builder does not have any other active builds, although he claims to have two. I can't imagine where he would get the money to finish our house.

Plumbing fixtures were just ordered a few days ago. We've had nine straight days with no work done at the house at all. There's some trim left to do. The trim guy told us he gave our builder the materials list two weeks ago. He said he'll do the work on Tuesday or Wednesday as long as the materials are there. Hubby asked trim guy what he needs. He'll have it on hand if our builder doesn't come through with the materials.

The dumpster is full to the top and the builder said he'd have it emptied, but it's been over a month and it still hasn't been done. We have a garage full of trash with no place to put it.

The last time our builder was at the house was December 11. He does not have any employees who check on the progress.

Clearly he is stalling. We need to get to a lawyer ASAP to see what we can do to get this thing moving along again.

Update....there is no update. Virtually no forward progress the entire month of January. The builder has effectively brought this build to a screeching halt. The dumpster did get emptied. We have been repainting all of the trim in the house due to Sherwin Williams not doing a good job color matching BM Simply White and me not realizing it until after it was too late. The plumbing fixtures came in yesterday and the plumbers are supposed to install them Monday or Tuesday...if you believe what the builder says...and the builder has been notoriously inaccurate in whatever he says.

We did meet with our lawyer and have a plan that we will implement soon. Stay tuned....

Good luck

You have the patience of a saint! I hope this home is finished very soon, what a headache!

I wish I could say I was patient. The fact is that I have had no choice. The past year has been absolute hell, a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. Earlier in the build when we were having the framing problems I thought it might help to envision burning the house to the ground, It didn't. Fact is, it's an absolutely gorgeous house. I'm glad we stuck with it. I just wish we didn't have to endure so much pain to get to this point.

Finish plumbing is in and looks great. That was the last of work that our builder arranged. Since parting ways with our builder earlier this week, we've managed to get things moving along finally. We have the backsplash going in today. Tomorrow the floors will be prepped for hardwood installation. Next week the flooring will be installed. We passed final electrical inspection today. Appliances have been ordered. We've been doing a lot of the finish painting, but it seems like it's a never ending project.

We received a lien notice a few days ago from the building supply company saying that our builder owes $70K to them and now they're looking to us to pay. We've paid off the construction loan as the builder has been making draws and we've paid the overages for extras to our builder, so we are paid up except for finish plumbing and a little bit of electrical work. There's only $50K left on the contract price of house that hasn't been paid to the GC, but there is still flooring, appliances, driveway, and landscaping that needs to be be purchased with that money.

Now that we're free of the builder, we have subs coming to us for money rather than our builder. This will get sticky from a legal standpoint, so we will look to our attorney for guidance of who to pay and how much they're due. It's my understanding that we won't have to pay more than the original contract price of the house.

We need a new front door because the beautiful mahogany one that was installed last summer still hasn't been sealed and it's warped. Problem is that the building supply place where our builder got it holds the lien and refuses to sell us the door, even if we pay them up front. It feels like we are the bad guys and being punished for what is rightfully our builder's debt.

Oh Kathy, I am so sorry. I’ve been through some nightmarish experiences before but nothing like this. I hope you have a good attorney who stays on the ball about this and acts quickly to help stop the hemorrhaging.

Oh my goodness Kathy. You could write a book. And maybe you should eventually. I’m so sorry.

Hang in there Kathy.

And no consolation, but we're finding problems now that are costing us plenty to fix. Including having to rewaterproof and retile our balcony because they didn't do it correctly. They didn't even read the specs.

@cpartist So sorry for your ongoing problems. I know you had an excruciating build, and now it's costing you even more because of your horrible builder. As if you hadn't already been though enough....

Thanks for your sympathies. I have been doing research on Virginia mechanic's lien laws and it does look like this is complicated. From what I understand:

-The mechanic's lien is not a punishment to the owner, but rather a 'pay me first' deal.

-We only pay for the project once.

--We are only liable to pay the lien claimant a total amount of our indebtedness to the general contractor, which is already less than the lien amount.

-That indebtedness is eroded by any amount that is needed to complete the project. So the total contract price of the house minus what has already been paid to the builder minus any expense we incur to complete the house = the 'fund' to pay any lien holders.

- We need to wait until the house is truly complete, meaning that any defects are fixed, before determining what, if anything, is available to pay the lien holder. By that time, we may have more liens on the house.

-I'm not sure if we can include the legal fees associated with the lien as a reduction in indebtedness to our general contractor.

-I'm not sure what, if any, effect the contract termination with our builder has on the lien. Probably nothing.

On a lighter note, it is exciting to see the backsplash in progress. We have installed towel bars and some blinds. The backsplash is partially finished. Super pretty! I'm beyond excited that flooring will be installed this coming week.

In spite of the lien thing going on, I'm thankful that the builder hasn't contested the contract termination (yet...) and he's no longer the focus of the build. Now we can turn our attention to actually doing things rather than focusing on pushing him to do things. Now I can actually start thinking of the logistics of moving into the house and what new furniture, towels, artwork, window treatments, etc. we will need. The end is finally in sight.

Update: We passed our final building inspection. Appliances and flooring are done. There are some minor things on the house to be done, like paint the shoe molding and install cabinets in the utility room. The city will let us move our stuff in, but we can't live there until the lot is graded and 18 trees planted. Unfortunately it's too wet still for grading, so we don't know when we can actually change our address.

In addition to the $70K lien I mentioned earlier, the HVAC guy sent us a letter saying he intends to put another $8K lien on our house and the plumber said the builder owes him $10K for work he did on our house.

Pics

Where I live there is a limit to how many days after the work was done a lien can be filed. You should check if there is a similar deadline where you are that would make the liens invalid. It is so frustrating since you already paid for it once, and the contractor is the one who did not pay. I wonder if the bank/loan has any liability for allowing continued draws without proof things were being paid? Good luck. I am so glad you are loving your home in spite of the torture of the build!

@lafdr The deadline for filling liens is 90 days after the last day they provided services or materials, so everyone is within that time limit in this very drawn out build. The bank checked for liens every time they released funds to the builder, but they didn't check to see if the builder actually paid those funds to the subs. I'm pretty sure they don't have any liability. We do have our lawyer working on our defense of payment.

What is the builder saying at this point or is he saying anything at all? What a sleeze!

I don't know much about liens and nothing about how your state handles it, but I think around here the only time they become an issue is if you ever want to sell. Here you can't sell without getting the lien cleared as the new owners want a clear title. Hopefully your attorney can help you work through all this and what is needed.

Glad you are able to move in finally and it looks great.

@lyfia It will not impact us moving in or anything, but it is an issue if the lien claimant(s) decide to file to enforce the lien, which they have 6 months to do. If we're not able to convince the lien claimant(s) that we've already paid. Then this thing would go to trial. The courts would decide who, if anybody, we have to pay and how much. At least that's how I understand it.

I do hope that we can successfully get the liens off without going to trial. We will see..

Today we received another lien notice...for $26K for cabinets and countertops.

I guess I should probably shut up now. It looks like this could blow up legally and I don't want to post anything that could be used against me....

Make sure you understand state lien laws as explained by your attorney, not your own interpretations.

The house is beautiful. Sorry you're still having so many issues. :(

I'm so sorry you are having to go through his Kathy. You are right about not communicating anymore. Listen to your attorney. I hope you can get a copy of the paperwork used when the builder accepted funds from the lender and then failed to pay the subs for the work the contractor said was completed. He obviously used the funds elsewhere. Now it is a matter of proving it.

You have a beautiful home.

@ Kathy Do you remember what tub you used in the master bath?

The tub is Wyndham Collection Galina. You can get it at Lowe's and Home Depot.