Palm Harbor Homes Took almost two years to build our home which is horrible and falling apart and we've only been here 1 1/2 years. Lynchburg Virginia
We decided to go to Palm Harbor because the look of their homes appealed to us. After speaking with a salesman, John Guess, he had us sold. It did not take long for us to provide the downpayment and begin our paperwork. We were living in a apartment community which obligated us to give adequate notice prior to vacating the apartment.
We choose all of our features and were told all was well and we would be in our home no later than Febuary 2006. We had a mild winter, our home was completed in the warehouse in January of 2006. We gave notice to our management company. Our apartment was rented to another family. Thats when we started getting lied to.
Joey, the construction manager could not get out to our land to do the work needed to set our house. It was always an excuse. Meanwhile, we had to retract our notice to vacate, causing fees on our part. We were advised that the new move in date would be the end of March.
Again, we gave notice. Thats when we were informed that the carpet that I origanally picked out was no longer available, a sage green, thick carpet. I was told to come back in, 80 miles from my current home to the sales center to choose another carpet. I chose a dark tan, thick carpet. We were also informed that Joey was fired.
Next came Shane, the new constuction manager. He was no better than Joey and had even more excuses. We complained constantly because our land which was cleared for the foundation to be laid way back in January, had started to grow tall grass once again and STILL no one came out to set the foundation. We were then informed that our salesman John was fired. This had been the only person who was of any help to us.
Meanwhile, we had an issue because we purchased a modular home and Palm Harbor had only built trailers and doublewides in Halifax County, where we were moving to, so we had to wait for them to get a license to build here. That took about a month.
We did not resign our lease, NOR did we go month to month as we could have when our lease expired because we had faith in that company.What we ended up doing in the end was pay almost double our rent because we were holding up other applicants from moving into our unit, a 3bedroom ground floor apartment with handicap access.
In July of 2006, we STILL had not moved into our home and I was irate because school was about to start. My kids were attending school in one county and I had them transfered to the county in which our new home was built. I have a child with disabilities and explained to David Locke, the General Manager, that it was VERY important that my children be settled before school started in August.
We ended up in a hotel for two weeks the first two weeks of school because the house still was not ready. Also, we had to move because the apartment was rented and we could not hold over tenancy any longer. Basically, we were homeless.
We were put up in a shody hotel on Palm Harbor dime and given a $25.00 food allowance per day to be reimbursed to us later. $25.00 for two adults, a teen boy and two children? We had to drive to the house each morning and afternoon to get the kids from the bus and missed any overtime offered on our job and got to work 25 minutes or more late EACH day for those two weeks.
We finally closed on our home and moved in on Agust 27, 2006, some SEVEN months later! When we moved in, NOTHING was the way I told them I wanted it.
The carpet was cheap and the lightest beige I have ever seen. (We have three children).
The front door was wrong.
There was NO landscaping as promised.
The built in entertainment center was placed in the WRONG ROOM!
The cabinets were off center.
The driveway was incomplete.
The decks were falling apart.
The walls had already began to crack.
The siding was messed up at the corners of the home.
Shingles were falling off the roof.
The house smelled like raw sewage for the first month.
The a/c heating unit is too small for a house this large, causing outrageous heating bills each month.
The water pressure is weak and our outdoor faucets do not even work.
These all all problems that I reported to Mr. Locke. He basically told us he doesn't care and we are on our own.
Since we have been in here;
Our hot water heater burst.
our carpet has fallen apart.
our driveway has washed away.
Our refrigerator went up.
Our diswasher went up.
Steps are coming up on our deck and several post have broken off.
Our crown moulding is fallen from the walls.
The messy gravel driveway have caused us to go through tires like crazy.
We made a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, but where is our justice? We still have to live here and its falling down around us. This has been the WORST experience in my life as a first time homeowner.
Sharnell
Nathalie, Virginia
U.S.A.
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3 Updates & Rebuttals
Rick
Gearhart,Oregon,
U.S.A.
The only way you will feel any better is to go out and tell the public about your experience.
#4Consumer Comment
Tue, December 16, 2008
To have the back of a coat stitched with friends don't let friend buy any Palm Harbor Homes is $35 where I live. Make business cards on your computer to hand out sending people to this web site when they ask about what's on the coat.
I feel for you, our house is one of the most expensive they build. It constantly needs repairs because of poor workmanship and cheap products. It always chaps my butt when the insurance people ask questions about my trailer. I just tell them it is four wide so we went ahead and took the wheels off.
You may end up deciding to let the bank take the house back, as you might repair your credit more easily than you can keep up with the house falling apart. I don't know if PH owns the company that financed yours, but they may. Not a fun decision. Then later you can stick build a real house in less time than this one took, and in our case for about the same money. I now know that I should have taken pictures and their sales handouts for dimensions, and built the floor plan traditionally.
Lisa
Riesel,Texas,
U.S.A.
PALM HARBOR IS JUNK
#4Consumer Comment
Sun, August 24, 2008
Take my word for it. After living in one for 16 years.....they are shiza. From top to bottom. It won't take long for things to go wrong and they start as soon as the warranty runs out. Plumbing explosions, having to cut huge holes in the walls to get to the plumbing to replace it(yeah..go look behind your tub...that's how you replace it!),poor windows that let in hot air and cold air($400 or better cooling and heating bill),overhead leaking on the stove when it rains, leaks around light fixtures during rain, cheap MOTOR HOME BATH TUBS INSTALLED, leaky toilets that ruin the underside of your lenoleum(if you have dark colored...be very afraid, as you cannot see the water stains through the darker stuff), constant rodent invasions due to the gigantic gaps around all the plumbing, white french doors that turned yellow after a year and leaked all under the carpet, causing major floor damage, super cheap carpeting(worst I have seen), crooked cabinet doors and just basically, almost everything is unlevel......
To put it inna nutshell....DO NOT BUY FROM PALM HARBOR. If you have one already....give it time...the demons will arrive once that warranty has expired.....
Countrygirl72
Evington,Virginia,
U.S.A.
After 8 months in my home I felt obligated to write this.....
#4Consumer Comment
Wed, July 09, 2008
Me and my husband have been in our new Palm Harbor Home for about 8 months now and everything has been fantastic so if you are looking for bad things to read about this company you may want to skip on to the next topic.
I found this website about 10 or 11 months ago after we had just closed the loan to purchase our new Discovery Buckeye home. Needless to say I was totally shocked and extremely worried from some of the things that were found specifically about the Lynchburg model center where we had bought. I was very suprised to find out about these bad experiences because my sister and another friend of ours both bought homes from the same place and were extremely happy with the home and everyone that they delt with. We confronted our salesman about this website and he said 2 things....first the construction manager that they used awhile ago did have a few unhappy customers so they let him go and they sell about 60 homes a year and have consistantly maintained around 90% customer satisfaction ratings. I was still concerned and asked him to speak with other customers who had recently built homes. Our salesman brought us into the filing office and opened up a drawer with all of the files that were completed in 2007 and told me to take whatever files I wanted and call the people. So I did. I got six peoples names and phone numbers but after calling 3 people that were all happy I stopped.
During the construction of our home I was constantly waiting for problems and issues but to our satisfaction the entire job went smoothly. The only issue that we had was not really Greg's fault "the construction manager". He told us when we first started that we may want to put a little money in the loan to bring in some fill dirt because he felt like there may not be enough to backfill properly but we declined because we wanted to save some money. We ending up needing it but instead of charging us for it Greg paid to have the dirt brought in and said that he hoped this would make us very happy...boy did it ever. The entire project took about 90 days. We felt like that was pretty good considering when we had met with several builders they were saying anywhere from 6 months up to a year.
The quality of our home has been fantastic for the short time we have been here. Within the first 60 days we had a small crack in a ceramic floor tile but Palm Harbor came out and fixed it within a week and a half after calling them. All of there home are very energy efficient also. We have not had an electric bill over $85 yet and our home is over 2000 sq'.
To anyone that is considering a Palm Harbor Home I would highly recommed Palm Harbor Homes of Lynchburg. Palm Harbor builds the absolute best Modular home around....they may be a few dollars more than some other modular companies but the difference is clear the first time you step foot in one.
Teresa