Legal Question in Construction Law in Michigan

Hello.

I am hoping for some advice here :)

My husband and I purchased a new home approx 1.5 years ago. The home was done through a VA loan and was inspected by a VA inspector. A week after moving in, we noticed our basement walls were crumbling on all five walls. It was crumblin so bad that you could stick your hand through it. It was also doing the same thing on the outside basement walls. Six months or so after moving in, we were contacted by the home builder to do a customer satisfaction survey. My husband explained the problem, and they had someone out to take a look approx one week later. They were in and out of our house with different people for about a month. They had the concrete company come out and "sand" the wall down. They then applied some sort of "coat" over it. Well, that did not work and the walls were doing the same thing a week later.

After that happened, we met with the owner of the Home builders company and a few other "higher Ups". The explained how bad they felt about what happened and gave us two options:

1. They would try and "fix it". Which of course would bring down the value of our home.

2. The concrete company would buy our damaged house. The builder would build us a new house and GUARANTEE financing for us.

We sold the house back to the concrete company and had the builder start our new home. When it came down to closing, we could not finance the home to due the downfall in the housing/mortage market. Even though are credit is just as it was when we purchased the first home. The concrete company did a land contract and we are coming to the end of that contract at the end of November. Unfortunatly we still cannot find a lender.

I feel like we are getting burned in thsi process and have been since the begining. If you could point me in the right direction, we would really appreciate it.

Thank you.


Asked on 10/19/09, 3:00 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Patrick Tracy Patrick J. Tracy, Esq, P.E.,

There are a number of issues here. What you do depends on the written contracts that you signed with the builder. The VA has a number of warranties that are included in a VA loan. Without seeing your contracts, I cannot comment further. I would advise you to seek local counsel to assist you. You may have a decent case.

Good luck!

Patrick Tracy

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Answered on 10/24/09, 3:33 pm


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