Jim Walter ripoff dishonest and poor quality of home, destroyed the American Dream Fort Smith Arkansas
We recently purchased a home from Jim Walter Homes in the Fort Smith office. We have had problems with the home since day one, we signed off on the house under good faith that the problems would be fixed. This was not the case.
The problems with the home have still not been fixed and we have currently became of some major problems. When we informed Jim Walters of these problems, they came and looked at the house again, and informed us that they would fix the minor problems, such as the porches, but other major problems such as the foundation they where not gonna fix.
Our total cost of the home was $88,500.00 dollars. We recently had it appraised and it only appraised for 42,363.00 dollars. This is a far cry from what we are suppose to pay for it. When we informed the company and the morgage company that the home only appraised for that, partly because of the problems with the home, they did not care, and still have no intentions to fix them.
Robin&mistie
mccurtain, Oklahoma
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Cindy - Consumer Advocate
Edmond,Oklahoma,
U.S.A.
Oklahoma does not hold builders accountable
#2Consumer Suggestion
Mon, April 21, 2003
Like many states, Oklahoma does not license home builders nor many of the home building trades. You would think that in a state where roofs are routinely blown away, that roofers would be licensed, but they're not. You'd think that in a state where all the builders talk about how the soil is hard on foundations that they'd be required to build the right kind of foundation but they're not. You'd think building codes would be enforced, but they're not. Ordinary consumer protection laws that would seem to apply are very difficult to get enforced. Home buyers who are sold a defective product often try for months or years to get a builder to honor a warranty without success. Lawyers are reluctant to help home owners because the state laws don't allow the recovery of enough money to make it an attractive case for lawyers. Despite all this, builders lobby for LESS regulation, and more restriction on our already pathetic legal recourse. We also bought a defective new home...our builder was Richard Fuller Homes. One of our first clues that the reason we weren't able to find out about him before we bought came when we realized the BBB wasn't sharing our complaint with others. They don't let consumers research complaints at the BBB. As a result of that experience I became involved with www.hadd.com and also a local Oklahoma group of homeowners who want to see this changed. I have been to the state capitol and have seen the builders lobbyists at work, eroding our consumer protection. It will take Oklahoma citizens demanding change for anything to improve. Too few people are aware this really happens, or don't think it can happen to them. They still think a person can always sue, or that threatening to will get results. With the way this problem is increasing, more people are going to get the oportunity to find out that it CAN happen to them, and just how little recourse they really have.