Cindy
Edmond,#2Consumer Suggestion
Tue, April 08, 2003
Start your paper trail now before the warranty period is over. He is advising you to wait, and keeping things verbal, because once the warranty period is up, he can say he was never notified of your home's defects, and therefore, he'll claim he's not obligated to fix them. Then it will be very hard to prove he was notified if you have nothing in writing. Send him a letter by certified return reciept mail, outlining (briefly and unemotionally) all the home's defects and the lack of service. There is an Oklahoma chapter of Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, (HADD) www.hadd.com and there is a small core group of OK home owners now called Oklahomans for Quality in Residential Construction, (OQRC). We need more people in this state to speak up about builders who do shoddy work and don't honor the warranty. The legal recourse against such companies is not very good, and the builders associations are spending lots of money to make sure the laws only get worse for consumers and better for companies that don't deliver what consumers paid for. You can contact HADD's Oklahoma Chapter by going to the website. Incidentally, the mayor of Healdton OK once stated that this is not a problem in smaller towns. I wrote to him stating that it certainly IS a small town problem, too, and he never replied. There is no safe haven from bad builders, it happens everywhere.