Complaint Review: Aspen Venture Group - St. Petersburg Florida

Please read the reviews of Aspen Venture Group in BBB also. There are similar complaints from other homeowners.

 1) We thought signed a contract with Aspen Venture Group, Developer/builder, in February of 2016 with a close date of end of July. We did not know at the time that James Landers who is the principal owner of Aspen Venture Group creates shell LLCs for all of his homes so that he can shield himself from taking responsibility and completing the work after the house close. After over 5 months of delay in getting our home built, Aspen told us that they got the final CO by adding temporary structures (railings, etc.). Aspen, James Landers, told us that he would remove the temporary structures after the closing and put the 'real' structures in the house. They never removed the temporary structures.

 2) We moved into our home in January, 2017 and began discovering MANY issues and punch out lists to complete the house.

 3) We contacted the builder with a list of all the issues and code violations that his own subcontractors pointed out to us. We have a copy of all the known issues and the builder's response to fix them. We were also promised $10K to fix all the paint peeling off the baseboards, trim, and other painting mistakes.

4) After 8 months of very little activity/non-activity and with the list of issues growing, on August 5th, we were told by the project manager that Aspen is refusing to pay for our flood vents (part of the escrow agreement AND part of the completion of the home). We were fed up with all the code violations and lack of response from Aspen, so we put a banner on our home to get Aspen to respond.

 5) On August 6th, Aspen sent us a threatening email telling us that he will sue us for defamation. The week after, his attorney sent us a letter of intent to sue.

 6) On Monday, August 7th, we were threatened by (2) two known associates of James Landers. One incident happened in the morning and a second incident happened in the afternoon. We have 2 police reports. At the time of the report, we had no idea that both were associates of James.

7) After these incidents, we got cameras installed around our home and hired an attorney to represent us. He told us to stop talking to Aspen. Our attorney corresponded with Aspen's attorney.

 8) Then, we hired a home inspector to go through our home.

 9) We provided to Aspen and their attorney the same list of ALL the issues found by the inspector. They responded with the list that they would fix. Out of over 50 issues listed, Aspen said that they would only 'fix' about 6 items that they felt they should fix according to our contract. None of the fixes mentioned all the code violations.

10) After their response, we got a copy of the police reports. We learned from the police reports that both people were sent by James Landers to threaten and harass us.

11) Our attorney sent a letter to Aspen's attorney that we have proof of the harassment and that they were contractually responsible to fix all of our issues. We told them that we do not want Aspen near our home due to the threats received and their refusal to fix all the issues. We would send them a bill once we get an estimate to fix all the issues.

 12) My husband went to the City to understand what the process was for home inspection and discuss the issues with your engineers. Their own engineers were in shock of how badly our house was off plan and how the inspector (Peter Goldhammer) approved the CO.

13) We have had over 20 General Contractors look at our house to fix the issues. They have all said that Peter Goldhammer, the inspector never inspected the house.

14) We hired a structural engineering firm at the beginning of March to do an assessment. Here’s Beryl Engineering’s "Findings and Conclusions. On the basis of our limited review and analysis of the documents received and inspections performed, and the assumptions set forth in the Report, we are of the opinion that: 1. Poor construction practices were found throughout Property violating Florida Building Code and Common Building Practice; 2. The Permitted Building Plans were not followed in the construction of the Property; 3. Due to the nature of the defects, discrepancies, and Florida Building Code violations found, we were of the opinion that this Property should be rebuilt instead of remediated. 16) Aspen’s response to the report was that their warranty was a 'limited’ warranty for only a year and won’t do anything.