My Parents contracted to build a house with The House That Jack Built, They specified the details and submitted drawings. My parents were never given a finalized set of plans to approve before the builder began construction. He pulled permits with the County Building Office however had not begun contruction for 5 months. When construction finally began they kept asking to see the finalized plans, only to hear excuses. As the house took shape, problems occurred in framing and foundation, and they ended up turning the house over to us 90% complete, with many structural inadequacies and as a result the house was not marketable. This was 9 months past the contract deadline which also put us in default on our loan. The builder demanded overages and failed to credit our out of pocket expenses (which were part of the construction costs) The builder coersed, harassed and threatened us during this time, while the lender who proved to be working with the builder and had ambandoned us filed a foreclosure action against the house, in an effort to coerse us. We had over 300K invested in the land and home and could not get help from the County or State licensing division against the builder. My Mom was successful however in getting Tom Gallahger who was the head of the State's Banking and Finance to step in and stop the foreclosure. THis gave them enough time to find another lender (one not working for the builder) but before they could close we had to bond off a large fraudulent lein placed against the property by the builder. They hired an attorney to help and 5 years later and over 200K in expenses finally went in front of a judge only to be once again cut off from justice. THe attorney is afraid to report the judge who frustrated the case and barred us from a fair hearing and the atty warned them that if we did, we would suffer retaliation from the judge. They were told by others that we had a malpractice suit against the lawyer who failed to properly litigate our case, however the attorneys have taken all our money... We are left with a house we cant sell, nor can we rent it for enough to even come close to covering the mortgage. The Attorney blamed the judge, the judge would probably blame the attorney. The state said they would sanction the builder's license once they were found at fault by the courts, yet the judge refused to hear the evidence and just walked away. The case was dismissed the builder walked and we were left with a broken bank account and broken hearts. We did everything we could, we were patient and steadfast... Waiting for our day in court... Only we were denied justice. We believe that anyone building a house in a small town, should be warned. You cannot trust all lenders, the local gov or the State to protect your interests and recently we learned that you can't even trust the Judiciary. We had to live in a construction site for over 5 years while spending over 5K a month. My Parents were told by experts to just walk away... But with today's hard economic times it is difficult to walk away from a 200K loss. As it stands... No one goes on report for this. I am glad that the people have this site in order to share and vent. I have to turn it over to the great avenger... Our heavenly father. The reason the best bargain is the already built house... Is because the buyer has a chance to research, plan and inspect before becoming financially bound. Too many players dynamics and things that can go wrong... Over the long period of construction. While we are all outraged about corruption and crime in the highest levels of government we need to look at our local government and its intanglement in private interests. A small town looses its apeal when there is so much corruption. I think we should all get involved... in bringing about change... And not leave it for just One Man in Washington to do.
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