Complaint Review: Lennar Homes - Village Builders

Lennar Homes/Village builders has built their first and last home for me. They frame with "seconds" (warped lumber, many with bark showing). There is not a single wall in my home that is not wavy, some more than others, though Lennar claims it's "within spec".  It's a lovely home and a really nice floor plan, but was literally thrown together as fast as humanly possible so Lennar could meet their November end-of-fiscal-year. Lennar lied to us about the "common wall" between us and our neighbor (townhouse) saying in writing (yes, I have this in writing on Lennar letterhead) that it has an air gap, which it does not have. Though the common wall is double insulated, even with sound board, the promised air gap, if it had been included, would have solved the noise issues. If our common-wall neighbor so much as closes one of her kitchen cabinets we can hear it. The neighbor has a P.O.S. stereo system (*NOT* surround sound) yet we can hear it every time she turns it on, even though she does not play it loud. I can only imagine what our true surround-sound system must sound like to her. We even have an exploded-view detailed architectural drawing from Lennar  clearly showing the "detail" of the air gap which does not exist. The toilets are Briggs brand, which if you look them up on Terry Love's web site about toilets you find the Briggs brand is  dead-last at the very bottom with the additional comment "not recommended" - well no kidding, little wonder that we have so many problems with clogs. What value are low-flow toilets that require multiple flushings and an occasional plunger? I'm about to pull the toilet from the master bath and throw it into the street and replace it with a good Kohler at my own expense. We reported toilet problems to the builder and their field technician's suggestion was for us to consider using single-ply toilet paper. How nice. The electrical panel is also a piece of crap in that although the wires are tight, the breakers themselves are physically loose in the panel and some actually come out of their snap-in fittings when you operate them. Nice. Our home is now 2 years old and we have already had to replace both ceiling fans it originally came with because they got noisey like they had square bearings in them. (They didn't wobble, they just started making noise) Have you ever tried to sleep with a "thumping" ceiling fan above you? These are the same fans Lennar told us would cost an additional $600 apiece if we wanted more than the 2 the home comes with as standard. Nice. The recessed can-type ceiling lights in our kitchen cannot be used with anything brighter than a 60-watt lamp or else the fixtures overheat and individual fixtures automatically trip-out the thermal breaker until they cool off. Great, so you work in your kitchen at your stove or sink in dim light. Nice.  None of the ceiling light fixtures in either the kitchen, dining room or living room are anywhere closely approximating "centered" in the usable room space.  Our roof absolutely looks like hell (very-very wavy) which of course is due to it being framed with crooked lumber. The roof truly is a "do-over" but that's apparently what you get with a Lennar home. Our siding (Hardy-Plank) is supposed to be face-nailed on 24" centers but is only nailed every-so-often. I am not exaggerating! Go into the attic and you want to make the sign of the cross. There are perlin braces which are actually split with huge (lateral) cracks in them. Obviously these were leftover scraps that the framers used to make their perlins. None of the concrete driveways in the community have re-bar or even wire mesh in them except right at the very foot of them. Nice! Obviously we can look forward to huge cracks eventually appearing in them. The garage door opener is an entry-level chain-drive that will not effectively stop the overhead door if you try to stop it mid-way during down-travel. It continues to slowly coast all the way closed. Is that safe? We didn't think so and so had OverHead Door Co. come out to check the counterbalance spring but found it adjusted correctly. OverHead Door told us our chain-drive door operator was builder grade, undersized and not recommended. Where have we heard that before? We contacted Lennar and when we mentioned the "unsafe" word they quickly acquiesced and upgraded our door opener for us, no charge, but of course didn't offer to replace anyone else's.  In my opinion Lennar builds a crap product of the poorest quality. They have successfully squeezed every single penny out of the home they possibly can. I'm convinced Lennar really bent us over on this home. I may be stuck with it, but I can sure spread the word. Do not ever buy a Lennar/Village Builders home.