Legal Question in Construction Law in North Carolina

Lack of action on lingering punchlist items

We moved into our new home in Aug. 2004. We provided a 30 day punch list and some of those items were addressed.

In March 2005 we met with our builder to go over remaining items on that list as well as some others that came up. He promised to address the items.

By May we heard nothing from our builder and sent him a letter stating that we expected him to address the issues.

With no response by July 2005 we sent a stronger letter re-stating what was said in the May letter. He called apologizing again. Shortly thereafter we met with his project manager to go over our list. He promised to get on it.

By the end of July (almost 1 year in the home) we provided the builder with our one year punchlist including a report from a licensed Home Inspector.

Our builder requested the Inspector's license and contact info. I reminded him that nothing had been accomplished yet. He again said he wants to make us happy, that our home is one of the finest homes he's built, etc but the Parade of Homes is coming up and it is hard to get the subs who are frantically trying to ready homes for that Showcase event.

Enough already, we really just want this issue closed. What do we do now? Thanks for your response.


Asked on 8/25/05, 11:31 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Kirby Law Offices of John M. Kirby

Re: Lack of action on lingering punchlist items

You don't have a whole lot of options. You have done well to keep on the builder about these matters. Hopefully a lot of your requests are in writing. You probably have a viable legal claim against the builder, based on implied warranties and express warranties (or contract). You may need to simply continue making demands upon him. If this fails, you may need to contact an attorney; that should help you to get a response. And ultimately, you could of course file suit against the builder. Your statute of limitations is probably 3 years. The builder's express warranty often has a one year duration. This usually means only that you must notify the builder of the problem within the first year, but you need to be cautious of any time contraints.

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Answered on 9/07/05, 9:48 pm


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