Complaint Review: Americas Home Place

I contracted America's Home Place to build our $300k retirement home on a beautiful wooded 18 acre tract of land in west tennessee. My wife and I love it there, it's quiet, secluded, and has a beautiful nature view. We had seen advertising for AHP on local TV and scheduled an appointment. They showed us what choices we could make involving floor plans, interior and exterior trim and ammenities, even took us and showed us 2 homes that were under construction. I should have been "clued in" when neither of the homes they showed to us had anyone working on them.

We decided to use their recommended bank because they were already set up with them for construction draws, and it seemed that would be the sensible decision. In fact the whole AHP experience seems to make sense in that it's all "in house", a complete building solution under one roof. They offer a marginal assortment of trim out options so not to make the decision making process so overwhelming. As I said it's a novel approach and we were able to pick out and choose what would be to our liking.

But here is where we went wrong. AHP won't allow you to change floor plan design or add / alter anything on the basic prints until you have "signed up". In fact you have to have the construction financing locked in and sign a stack of paperwork before you will receive anything close to a final plan. And don't go by the plans on their fliers, they are "purposefully" flawed so that you can't carry them to another builder for duplication. The measurements and sq footage doesn't add up among other things.

But OK we thought. I can understand that AHP doesn't want to waste time with unqualified buyers, and the process is set up to weed out buyers that don't fit the criteria. We signed up for the house, the construction loan, the final set of construction plans, and did all that was required of us. My wife and I also searched the internet, the BBB, and local newspaper archives for any problems with AHP. We only found a couple of complaints, nothing much considering the size of AHP. You can expect a couple of complaints we thought.

WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER SIGNED ALL THAT PAPERWORK! Take it from someone that is currently going through a bad situation with a company that doesn't care, nor is willing to correct the problem. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give up your legal rights to "arbituary proceedings". YOU WILL BE SORRY, and the agreement is binding in AHP's favor. We are at 8 months in to the building process and don't even have a slab yet. Well not exactly true, they did construct one slab but is was so flawed it had to be demolished and re-constructed over again from the beginning.

I can't express how foolish I feel, how used, lied to, and depressed I am over this whole experience. My hands are tied. I've offered to pay them off where they are and be done with it. THEY REFUSE. They are going to build this house wether I want it or not. There exact words were "we're gonna build it and you're gonna love it". I'm not sure how to take that but I don't think it's a good thing. I've put up $10K down payment to cover overages, spent almost $25K on site prep including correcting a costly mistake AHP made on the inital layout of the house. Another $5K to their recommended bank, which by the way charged me points on a construction loan when they shouldn't have. And don't forget that they now have my property tied up on paper, another $60K. That's $100K on the line!

Like I say, 8 months have gone by since we first started into this agreement and we don't even have a slab yet. Now with the wet weather and the ground so tore up from demoing the 1st slab they tried to build, the jobsite is a mudhole. Apparantly they don't get dirty either because they want a perfect site to work on. Their excuse is that it's to wet and muddy to work. I've offered to buy boots for the men if that would help. They have worked a total of 1 day in the last month! At this rate it'll take 10 years to build the house. In my neighborhood 3 houses have been built and are now occupied during the time we've spent with this outfit.

Don't be decieved by this company. Your construction loan will expire before the house is built, and there is a good chance that you may lose your property to them. The contract doesn't give any completion timelines, they can drag it out as long as thy want. And you'll be paying on the construction loan. THEY DON'T CARE PERIOD! The job superintendent I have can't read a set of plans, or at least he couldn't read mine. Delays, excuses, more delays, more excuses, and outright LIES have been told to me from this company.

My only recourse is to hold them to the building standards that they themselves have set. In the book they furnished to us are strict guidelines that are going to be tough for them to meet up to. I intend to stuff those guidelines down their throat so to speak, and not allow them to short-cut or pencil whip the construction process. I can see a game of hardball coming on!

If you are looking for a builder, STAY AWAY from America's Home Place, aka The Home Place. They totally rely on subcontractors, and have no in house building crew. There is no superintendent that will be on location to handle day to day problems, and subcontractors will be able to get away with anything that they can. If you read here about AHP, and do buisness with them anyways, then don't come here crying afterwards. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Also do a search on this site for "The Home Place", you'll find a few more unhappy home owners with their story to tell.

And to AHP, you haven't "ripped me off", I'm venting my frustration with the poor way you run your company. I know when I'm beeing LIED to, and I've overheard the jokes that your staff makes about "stupid home owners" behind their backs. Us stupid home owners pay you 23% over cost for the privilege of doing this to us, and we're not happy about it.

Mike P
West, Tennessee
U.S.A.