Complaint Review: Neumann Homes - Warrenville Illinois

I live in kenosha, wi and used to be a subcontractor for Neumann homes a few years ago, i would never buy one of their homes. I do also know that Newumann homes filed for Bankruptsy in the fall of 2007. i do not know all the details of this but they left quite a few people here in the middle of homes and people that had money down on homes.

I've been where Jess is at and it is indeed frustrating. My builder though came to my home, spent over an hour explaining to me why the delays were occuring, and even offered to let me spend a day or so with him so I could see firsthand what he had to deal with. I didn't feel the need to take him up on that but just his willingness to explain was appreciated. Sometimes things really are beyond the control of mortals. JMHO

Jess, Obviously, the builder is not suggesting that God came down and smote your yard or any of that nonsense. Nobody is taking God's name in vain. "Act of God" is a general, generic, legal term for just about anything that is not directly under the control of the builder. Like rain. Like the gas company. The builder might schedule them MONTHS in advance. But the gas company is not a carpenter - they can't be fired or fined if they fail to perform their task. If they blow off the builder, and believe me, it does happen, the builder is powerless, embarrassed, and financially injured. Utility workers show up, sit in their trucks all day, then climb on their Ditch Witch for the first time after lunch and carve right through the neighbor's cable line. There are political cartoons on the subject. The builder wouldn't dare do any more than shake their fist angrily at their truck, because the gas company will just pack up and leave if they are having a bad day, and then nothing will get done for ANOTHER month. Or the Village may feel overworked because all these new homes have got them doing a lot more paperwork. Before the builder got to town their jobs were a lot easier - so right there, they have an attitude. They literally feel like their territory is being invaded, and so they can and will take as much time as they like to review plans and contracts. They'll make the builder jump through all sorts of hoops. It's just a stupid power game on their part. The builder can protest, of course. Take legal action, yes. But aside from the significant direct cost of that, they would very typically be shut down in that village and unable to build any homes in the meantime - a very costly ramification that most builders have neither the time nor the money to entertain. Sod is a good example, and one which is brought up frequently on this site. Sod comes from farms, and is harvested by a big machine the size of a small RV. It drives over the grass and the business end of this machine slices the grass and about an inch or so of roots and dirt away from the ground in strips about 6 feet long and just over a foot wide. It then rolls these strips up and automatically stacks them neatly on a wooden pallet, ready for delivery to the jobsite. But this machine is very heavy. If there has been any appreciable amount of rainfall any time in the past 3 days or so, the machine can sink into the soft soil. Extraction of the machine typically results in a great deal of damage to the surrounding sod - expensive damage. So the sod farmers will not even attempt to deliver sod under these conditions. And of course, once the sod is cut up, it's a race against time to get it installed. This means that you can't cut a ton of it and then just hold onto it in case it rains. They only cut what they're going to use that day. Now if you consider that the sod farms never open earlier that mid april, and it's probably going to rain at least once or twice a week for at least the next month, that means that at the earliest, sod isn't going in at a rapid pace until at least mid-May. Maybe the end of May. You show me somebody who can predict when they can do this work accurately, and you'll be showing me somebody who's worth billions. Incidentally, there are only a couple of landscaping companies in the Chicago market that have the wherewithal to keep up with a large homebuilder. There are only so many guys available to lay your sod down, and all the builders have to share them. And guess what, you're not the only customer that wants their sod first! In fact, EVERY customer wants to be first. Then you have the village. Many of them require finished yards to grant a certificate of occupancy, or CO. Of course that can't happen in winter, so they issue what are called Temporary COs. Well, homes that have a Temp CO can be closed on and occupied without grass. But at some point, usually right after the sod farms open, the village stops issuing Temp COs, and goes back to requiring fully installed grass. So the builder has to devote it's resources primarily to the homes that have just closed. Only after they're current on those houses for the week, or the day, are they allowed to work on winter houses. If they tried to service the homes that closed over winter first, the village would not allow anybody new to move in. It's not up to the builder. OK, here's the kicker. The last two years have been very dry summers. So the villages enact standing watering bans. If you can water at all, it's usually only a couple times a week. That's fine for established grass, but fresh sod dies without enough water, and it needs a lot of it. But the village doesn't care - they make the builder put sod in anyway, and then fine the builder and the homeowner if they water it too much. It's insane. It's maddening. The builder can elect to pay for a big water truck to come and hose down the yard of course, but at $1000 a trip (ie, just to get the truck to show up, and before he puts 1 drop of water in the yard), that gets mighty expensive, as the sod needs to be watered daily for 2 weeks and rain doesn't count or help. They sometimes do it anyway. Or the builder can do nothing and let the customer's sod die, but don't think for a minute the builder likes it. Yeah, the beancounters want to see your money fill the company coffers, but the vast majority of people you actually meet in person at a homebuilder take their jobs seriously, and really do want to make you happy. They don't want your money. They want to make you so happy with your house that you buy another one. But they're going to draw the line at behavior that is deemed unprofitable by management. Of course, you, the homeowner, don't like it either. But what do you expect the builder to do? They are powerless - there's no "fighting city hall". Tough choice - unhappy homeowner or $14k in water bills per house? I don't know how much money you think the builder actually makes on a house, but I guarantee you'd be surprised to see how small the number is. A builder of Neumann's size has to sell a ton of houses just to keep the lights turned on. Never mind profit. You know what's REALLY disappointing? The builder dumps thousands of dollars on your yard, and then you dump fertilizer on it, burn it, your dog's urine kills it, you cut it too short, and then it all dies and you call and blame the builder. They just flushed thousands of dollars away for no gain. That's stress right there. In the end, they gamble that for MOST people, REASONABLE people, they're able to explain the process well ahead of time so you're not caught unaware, then bring your satisfaction level back up over the course of your warranty experience. They probably told you all about it already, but your cell phone is ringing, you brought your kids to all your appointments against common sense and the builder's advice, and now little Jimmy is pulling little Dorothy's hair, and you were so distracted that half or all of what they told you went in one ear and out the other. I mean, good Lord, none of this is rocket science. You don't have to be all that experienced in deductive reasoning to figure out the behind the scenes stuff. And most of the problems you mention could certainly be traced back to an overworked and ineffective operations manager. Neither you nor I want THAT guy's job. But we also have no idea why he really left. Or was invited to leave. So you aren't qualified to comment on that. Finally, I'd say about 99% of this stuff is written down on paper that you probably have somewhere in your possession right now. That'd be the contract you mentioned. Hey, did you know your warranty manual is part of that contract? Unless you lost it. Don't worry, it happens all the time. Don't blame the builder that you didn't care enough before to read it. You think they print warranty manuals for fun? And it's not anybody's fault but yours if you signed something without having a COMPLETE and COMPREHENSIVE understanding of EACH AND EVERY LINE ITEM. How hard is the builder supposed to beat their head against the wall to try to make you read the fine print? That's your job. Were they in a hurry? Try to rush you when you were signing? So what - tell 'em to cool their heels. Aren't you an adult? Ever buy anything? When is the last time you read the fine print on that receipt from Best Buy? Uh huh, thought so. Bottom line is this: Regardless of whether you know it or not, you are NOT the only one who wants you to successfully and painlessly move into your new home. The builder WANTS to build you a home. But they can't take responsibility for you. There are reasons for your experience. You may not like them, or you may call them excuses, but they are what they are. The facts are not the Easter Bunny. They exist independent of your belief in them. Having money to buy something doesn't make you knowledgeable about it or qualified to own it. Just think - you'd be happier right now if you had taken the trouble to educate yourself better. For the record, anybody that buys a home without a lawyer is grievously misinformed about a great many things. And in the future, I suggest you use spell check when defaming others. It lends badly needed credibility to your argument.