Our House Is A Lemon!!!

I'm about to paint it bright yellow and hang signs in the windows and front yard warning people not to buy a crappy house in this development. The sales office is directly across the street. Everyone will see it!!

We bought this house last January:

After paying nearly $300,000 for it, we expected to live happily ever after. Now we're wishing we never bought it!

The day we moved in there was a water leak in the garage near the water heater. They came out and fixed that. Six weeks after we moved in, the things we noted during the walk-thru at closing that needed to be fixed or finished, still had not been finished. Then the builder packs up one night and leaves!!

Then the AC upstairs starts blowing hot air. I call the warranty company only to find out we have no warranty. Our house was supposed to come with a warranty, but the builder never paid for it. So, we called someone out to come and fix the AC. He tells us that he is unable to completely fix the problem because of the way the unit was installed. It wasn't installed up to code. By this time, there is no way to get a hold of the builder ~ their number has been disconnected and their office closed.

Then we get notices in the mail that several liens have been filed on our house because the builder never paid the contractors. I called the title company and those were finally taken care of ~ turns out they were all filed illegally.

The new builder that took over the development said they were going to take care of things. We were promised a warranty on the house. That still has not happened. They come over and look at things that need to be fixed and say they'll be back to fix it and they never do.

So here we are just over a year later and tile still had not been installed around the tub. Around the tub was just drywall and then the tub ~ it wasn't even caulked to keep water from going behind the wall! We finally got tired of waiting for the new builders to come and do it, so we called someone ourselves. Well, it turns out that the faucet on both the tub and shower were installed with missing parts and there was a leak. The guy cut away some drywall to find that the whole bathroom is done in plain drywall, not the moisture proof drywall required in bathrooms and kitchens here. I don't even know how that passed inspection!!

So, I have to fill out a complaint form for the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. We had the contractor who did out tile look at the rest of the house so we could list every problem on the complaint. He found a lot of issues with the house. All the faucets leak and were installed wrong. The stucco is cracking and the paint on the outside is peeling. I'm pretty sure there is a problem with the electrical wiring in the house because the circuit breaker trips a lot and we have to go outside to the box and flip it back on. The list goes on and on.... Then we have to fill out a recovery fund claim so we can get up to $30,000 to fix everything the builder screwed up!

I guess it could be worse ~ almost every other house in our development has had problems with their sewer lines backing up. At least that hasn't happened in our house...yet.