I have been trying to settle a claim against Trendmaker Homes for fraudulent installation of outdated mortar mix on tile throughout my house. This ordeal has gone on for almost two years.
Gunshot-like sounds go off at night repeatedly, and in the morning I find earthquake-like eruptions where the tile is standing off of the floor and other areas where the tile has been ejected across rooms.
All of the tile (1350 square feet) is loose and gravely when it is walked on. I have had to make repeated patch repairs just to make the house livable. Matching tile has not been available for over a year. It is simply not sold anymore. The patches are a joke in my $260,000 house.
Tile analysis determined that the tile was installed with dramatically watered down mortar directly over construction debris. The result is a home with erupting and loose tile throughout the entire house. The carpeted bedrooms are the only areas without tile.
Trendmaker was forced to replace other tile work in many houses throughout the Katy area, due to TV coverage by the homeowners. Mine was one of the last to be addressed, and Trendmaker offered to replace only a few rooms.
My house plan is totally open, with loose tile in every room. Additionally, Trendmaker said that they would not offer one day's warranty on any tile work that they did, because the house was more than a year old. It looked to me like they planned to make a bigger mess than I already had, or a least, the same mess.
For this reason, I obtained three outside quotes to replace all of the 1350 square feet of affected tile. The costs were between $10,000. And $13,000. Trendmaker said that they would pay me $1,200. That amount does not even cover the patch jobs over the years.
I tried to use the BBB for pre arbitration only to have Will Holten flagrantly misrepresent how and why the damage occurred. My multiple expert testimonies were literally pushed aside at the table, as he made accusations about nonexistent grand pianos destroying the tile, as well as other false and insulting smoke screens to hide Trendmakers gross negligence. The young University of Houston student, who presided over the BBB pre-arbitration, made no objections.
I have since discovered that the BBB has never settled a case in favor of the homeowner against Trendmaker. This took some doing, but the extensive emails between the BBB and myself, seem to more than support this claim. They are available upon request.
The new legislation written "for the builders by the builders, " has made obtaining basic warranty coverage near impossible, and outright fraud, normal.
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