After staying with my dad in his home in Sparta for about two and a half months, we started to search harder and further out for our perfect first house. My step mother and real estate agent Mary, found a brand new Spec Home located on Bon Air Mountain. It was yet to be finished, but I would say it was 78% completed. After we finally met the builder/contractor, David Sims, we set up a contract for the house on October 10th. It took a couple of tries but on October 13th, David agreed to our contract and signed off on the provisions and the contract. David verbally told my wife and my step mother that it would take him two weeks to finish. TWO WEEKS! Ha! We were so excited we could barely contain ourselves. Our first new home purchase, and on a mountain!
Every day after that, I would stop by the house to see the progress. There was none. This continued for about 3 1/2 weeks! Finally, some things were done and we had already moved the closing date back I think about three times. So finally we set a closing date for November the 10th. By this time, we just wanted to get into our new home and get our stuff out of storage. It still seemed that David would be behind on this project. I was starting to consider pushing the closing off another week or so. This is when I called our banking representative to see if that was even an option. It seemed it was not. She had already sent the documents to the title company.
At this point, we were still pretty sure things would work out. We had heard that it would be a good idea to have the closing lawyer, put money into escrow for us in case these things did not get finished in time. Well, at the time of closing that was not really an option either. It had not been prepared or something. Who knows? Anyway, we met in Sparta to close on our house. What we decided to do was write up an addendum and have David Sims sign this addendum in front of Jack Franklin. The addendum listed items that still needed to be completed. The master bathroom tile work & the leveling/filling and planting of grass in the front yard just to name a few.
Let’s fast forward >>.
It is currently the middle of May 2008. Our kitchen tile is coming up in several places. Our bathroom tile looks way way way SUB-Par (see our tile work.) David added one load of fill dirt to our front yard, smoothed adjusted it with a bobcat tractor and threw some hay and seed over it in February. (We still have about a foot and a half drop off from the driveway and bare spots.) We just had a home inspection and found out that THREE 2×4s are holding up the main roof! The washer/dryer drain pipe was broken unglued in three places, just leaking water under the house. The first week we where in the home the main sewage line connection to the septic tank broke due to lack of glue which he “fixed”. The floor/foundation under the house is not really even supported in the middle. The kitchen “pass through” was cut unevenly and now looks like the top of a crushed egg instead of a domed semi circle.
I apologize for ranting, but i guess this is what this blog is for.
At any rate, my wife and I are currently pursuing legal assistance for this matter. We are still under our One Year Warranty. David Sims does not seem to want to fix his screw ups nor will he want to pay for damages and/or a REAL contractor to get the job done.
To finalize and conclude, to fix this issue, we want either one of two things.
- David Sims to purchase the house back from us as well as cover the cost of lawyer fees and damages.
- David Sims to pay for another contractor to repair the damages. Whatever that cost may be
If anyone has ANY advice or would like to help us in this matter, please join this blog and leave a comment. I really hate that our first home purchase has to turn out like this. It seems to me that some people are just out for money and getting jobs done half assed. I can’t stand it. This mental anguish has almost cost me my job on more than one occasion. I want this issue resolved, especially before my first baby boy gets here in September.
