We hired Taylor to build a quality brick home on property we've owned for over 36 years. The new house was for our retirement years and it was to be built directly behind and then replace our current home. Taylor advertises their company as a scattered site home builder, building on property that the customer already owns.
The problems started immediately. The new house sat on the highest point of land around. Even the topological maps show that the land slopes away in two directions and rapidly falls away in the other two directions. The block foundation was put in too high so that as my husband said "We'd have to put wings on the cars in order to get them into the garage." When I brought it to Taylor's attention, the response was to knock out the top row of block from what was to be the garage opening.
That's all.
The block foundation was not waterproofed and some of the black drain pipe laid around the house was in unconnected pieces. Also, it rained continuously during this time and the site and lumber were not protected or covered. Once we would get home from work in the evenings, we tried to cover and protect the building materials, but that would only take care of things overnight. The framing was done with rain saturated lumber and large standing pools of rain water accumulated and were left inside the crawlspace foundation where no attempt had been made to level out the ground. Also, part of the crawlspace had some gravel, but the rest was pure mud.
The framer seemed nice but he couldn't seem to get his helpers to show up because (as he indicated) they were out drunk. The whole front wall of the livingroom was put in backwards and stayed that way until I pointed out that the front door and window openings were not where they were supposed to be. The framer was very nice and turned it around.
The Tyvek wrap which we had to pay extra for was improperly installed. The seams were not taped as required by the manufacturer and there were some rips. We went and bought some Tyvek tape and tried to tape what we could reach, but that left a lot undone.
We had ordered a special style and size of Anderson windows. The wrong size and wrong style of windows were delivered and installed. When we pointed it out, the site supervisor (who was hardly ever there and as he told me he was supervising twenty other homes, some of which were four counties away in all directions) argued that we didn't know what we were talking about. As he said, Taylor didn't install that size window or that style, and "the window number listed on the contract didn't mean anything."
We went to the Anderson window website and downloaded their information which showed the model numbers listed on the contract matched what we had ordered. The site supervisor still argued that the smaller size, etc was what we were supposed to get. It took a number of weeks before we were able to get them to agree to the correct windows. The old windows were ripped out and the correct windows were installed, but the original Tyvek was just pealed back and reused, so it was a mess. The windows were never taped or flashed as required under Anderson's warranty.
The bricklayers were a Mexican crew and right away we noticed problems. The brick courses were uneven and sloppy. (From day one of the very start of construction we took lots of digital pictures to document our new home and they are proof of the lack of quality workmanship.)
As I said previously, we hardly ever saw the site supervisor, but I called him to come pick up the construction installment payment and he arrived within thirty minutes. I physically showed him what we considered poor, uneven brick work and I showed him pictures of the same brick work which absolutely showed that the bricklayers were not leaving any space between the bricks and the wall as recommended by the brick manufacturer, by the Tyvek company, and by building code.
At the time, I did not realize the importance of these pictures. I was more upset because of the uneveness of the brick courses, the second rate brick, and the fact that the brick crew went off the job site and were taking things (most notably some redwood siding which they took from near our shed and used as walkways through the mud.) The site supervisor's response to my complaints: "Hey, Pisano, you better use a level because she's taking pictures."
The brickwork only got worse. There are numerous imperfect bricks included which should have been discarded. The whole West wall of the house visually goes in and out. I bought and put an orange colored level on it and it's out of alignment by several inches. The Southwest corner overhangs the foundation by over half the brick width.
The mortar rubs off if you rub your fingers over it and there is a large area where the mortar looks as if some nursery school children had made mudpies and left their fingerprints in it. Taylor's response to the brickwork and to the pictures was that "Everything was within code; it would only make things worse to try to fix it; and the heavy orange plastic levels weren't any good and didn't prove anything."
Taylor refused to install the Leaf Guard gutters which were listed in our contract and for which we had to pay extra for the upgrade. The agreed upon upgrade price was confirmed with corporate headquarters before we even signed the contract. We notified Taylor's district office of the wrong gutters just as soon as we saw them lying in the garage, waiting to be installed. Taylor absolutely refused to install the correct gutters and, instead, installed their standard gutters with rolls of 99 cent screening in them.
The brick work and gutters were the last straw. We hired a house inspector. He said that the brick work was only the start of our problems. The crawlspace was covered with 3 - 4 kinds of mold (orange, white, black, and green). Heat pipes were left hanging open in the crawl space and a floor joist was cut in two and left hanging.
Insulation which was supposed to be along the exterior foundation walls was falling on the ground and left lying in puddles of water. The supposed ground barrier was small scrap pieces of clear builders plastic put down willy nilly and which didn't even begin to cover the ground. Only one nail was used to attach each floor joist to the sill plates, and fire stops were missing, etc.
Up in the attic area, the rafters were not laterally supported as required by the engineer specs. The siding above the brick work came loose and was hanging off the building. There were so many other things wrong: the brackets for the outside air conditioning unit were installed about 5 - 6 feet off the ground and they were just about the total length of the house away from the furnace unit; the furnace unit was only a shell; the bathroom vents vented into the attic and not outside as required; the dryer vent was to the outside, but it was not attached; the brick fireplace hearth which was about 9 inches tall was built directly on the subfloor and it was not supported underneath; the exterior trim around the garage door left a 4-5 inches of wood exposed all the way around on the outside of the building; the back door from the garage has holes on either side clear through to the outside that were just stuffed with pieces of insulation; and their were large leaks inside along the exterior walls and over the fireplace which is in the center of the house.
In November Taylor brought out an environmental specialist in response to the mold claims. Taylor tried to claim that we caused the mold problem and they weren't responsibile for it. The environmental specialist's report stated that the crawl space was built entirely wrong and that the mold was toxic. He also found and documented mold inside the house. Taylor did provide us with a copy of the environmental specialist's report, but they did not send us a copy of the structural engineer's report who had come out at the same time.
We hired a lawyer and we had another on-site meeting with Taylor. Taylor demanded another payment, and said they'd make repairs after we paid them. We refused. Taylor filed a lien in September and then foreclosure and a demand for binding arbitration in December.
We counterfiled at the same time claiming that Taylor broke the contract and claiming relief under the Consumer Sales Practices Act. At the same time, we received a notice scheduling arbitration and requiring us to pay for it. (The contract required us to pay all legal fees for Taylor and required us to pay all fees required for the binding arbitration - needless to say - we refused.) The first Common Pleas Court appearance was in August.
In the meantime, my son had put up a website showing pictures of the house construction. Taylor sent legal notices to take it down claiming copyright laws and defamation. We received notice that a lawsuit was filed regarding the website on the same day that we had the first court appearance for the foreclosure and arbitration proceedings. Taylor's lawyer stood out on the street corner after we came out of court and tried to intimidate us by stating that we would be in Federal Court in September if we didn't settle.
Instead, we hired another lawyer to handle the website lawsuit. The Federal Judge wanted the Common Pleas Court Suit on the foreclosure and arbitration issues settled first. So we waited. Finally, the Federal Judge scheduled a mediation hearing before one of her fellow Federal Judges. The mediation hearing was held in March and the Judge suggested that we file for a summary judgement in order to let our facts speak for themselves.
Here it is August and our lawyer has filed the paperwork for a summary judgement. The next scheduled conference before the Federal Judge is in October. We still don't have a ruling from the Common Pleas Court on the foreclosure and arbitration issues.
Taylor says that they offer a money back buy back guarantee that you'll be satisfied. They neglect to tell you some things about that. First of all, Taylor doesn't have to honor the buy back guarantee if you've made any change orders to the original stock plans. Moving the garage opening from the side of the house to the front on the same day that we signed a contract constituted change order # 1. Second, Taylor's buy back guarantee says that they will only pay the lesser of your actual purchase price of your property or the appraised value.
We bought over 37 years ago when the area was rural and prices were extremely low. We've made extensive improvements to the land. We own over 3 acres of land in what is now an extremely desirable, high priced neighborhood. Taylor's buy back guarantee also states that Taylor only has to buy one acre or less of your land and all utilities (septic, water, and electric, etc) must be in place.
My advice to anyone even thinking about building with Taylor Homes is to make an informed decision. Consider what we've gone through. I feel that Taylor has tried to intimidate us with both court actions. They're used to dealing with first time home builders who have limited income. They have ripped us off. They sold us quality, but they substituted inferior sizes and quality, etc. The construction workers seemed to be inexperienced without adequate supervision, and when problems were brought to Taylor's attention, the responses amounted to excuses and slight of hand.
As soon as The Federal Judge grants an ok on the summary judgement, we intend to put the website back up. We also want the house torn down.
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