SuperFrustrated77
Member
Florida
My wife and I built a custom home this last year. Worst experience of our lives by far. The builder went 2 months past the contracted completion date and we almost lost our interest rate lock. He eventually "completed" it and I provided a punch list of items that needed to be fixed (that he signed and initialed) to be done my April 1 2018. In addition to that there have been other things that need to be corrected as well. He no longer answers our requests or texts and has fixed NOTHING. Now he's stating the reason is that we still owe him $20,000. The next week he says we owe him $30,000. In reality he owed us money and when I presented that fact that he tried to double, triple and quadruple charge us for items in excess of $12000. We decided to call it even and just asked that the house be fixed to our specifications which he agreed to. He received his final draw and gave us the Final Release and Waiver of Lien stating he was paid in full and all subcontractors were paid in full. In fact, subcontractors are sending us invoices and owed more than $5000 still.
My questions are:
What do I do about the subcontractors? How do I get them paid?
How do I get our home fixed?
If we end up in small claims (can't afford a lawyer because of the amount of money we've poured into the house to make it right) is it a one shot deal or can I take him to court for items 1-5 then again for items 6-10 since small claims has a max limit allowed?
And IF we have a judgement in our favor for only a couple of the items (due to small claims limit) does that automatically absolve him of any further responsibility on the house?
My wife and I built a custom home this last year. Worst experience of our lives by far. The builder went 2 months past the contracted completion date and we almost lost our interest rate lock. He eventually "completed" it and I provided a punch list of items that needed to be fixed (that he signed and initialed) to be done my April 1 2018. In addition to that there have been other things that need to be corrected as well. He no longer answers our requests or texts and has fixed NOTHING. Now he's stating the reason is that we still owe him $20,000. The next week he says we owe him $30,000. In reality he owed us money and when I presented that fact that he tried to double, triple and quadruple charge us for items in excess of $12000. We decided to call it even and just asked that the house be fixed to our specifications which he agreed to. He received his final draw and gave us the Final Release and Waiver of Lien stating he was paid in full and all subcontractors were paid in full. In fact, subcontractors are sending us invoices and owed more than $5000 still.
My questions are:
What do I do about the subcontractors? How do I get them paid?
How do I get our home fixed?
If we end up in small claims (can't afford a lawyer because of the amount of money we've poured into the house to make it right) is it a one shot deal or can I take him to court for items 1-5 then again for items 6-10 since small claims has a max limit allowed?
And IF we have a judgement in our favor for only a couple of the items (due to small claims limit) does that automatically absolve him of any further responsibility on the house?