House Woes

To say that our meeting with the builder's representative yesterday didn't go well, would be an understatement.  Y'all, it. wasn't. pretty.

It's an extremely long story, but I'll cut to the chase.  They had never built a bonus room over the garage on the specific floor plan that we wanted, so there wasn't one that we could see to decide it we wanted a bonus room or not.  Well, good news! They have one over another floor plan that we can go see if we want. Yes!  We drove 45 minutes one way and decide, yes, we love the bonus room.  It was a ton of useable space, but away from the rest of the house, perfect!

We write up our contract to include the bonus room, which adds a certain amount of money to the house.  We agree.  We're told that in 10 days we'll get our plans back and sign off on them, go to the design center, then construction will begin.  That was on November 10th!! Over two months ago!  The first time we went to review our plans there hadn't been any of the modifications that we wanted included.  All the architect had done was add the bonus room, but didn't include any of the things we wanted changed/added to the floor plan.  Okay, whatever, a mistake can be made.  The other problem?  The bonus room didn't look a thing like the bonus room we saw.  The one on the plans was a long, narrow room with a tiny window on the very end.  Did I tell you the walls were slanted? So yeah, here's a bonus room that has about 4 feet of useable space. Fantastic.  We say we aren't happy with that, they tell us they can add a dormer but it'll cost us, we argue, the builder rep's mom (who also works there) steps in and says we'll just ask the architect to see what he can do, we'll find a way to make it how you like it. Yay!

Don't know what a dormer is?  I didn't either.  It's just a thing that sticks out of the

roof line that allows the ceiling to be a normal height in that area, plus windows!!

The second time, the builder's rep/realtor sent them back to the architect because she found a few things he didn't include (<-- this was the first and maybe only thing she's ever done to help us!).

The third time we were to review them (about 2 weeks ago) we actually met with the architect.  My husband, who is an engineer so he freaking knows what he's talking about, had a good meeting with the architect and we just had to wait for one more meeting.  The new bonus room was beautiful!! It looked perfect and we were so excited that we had come to a resolution.  Everybody was in good spirits and we left feeling like this was all gonna work out.  ALL the architect had to do was move our pedestrain door in the garage over 2 feet.  It was supposed to be an easy meeting and then we'd FINALLY be finished with that part!

Well yesterday we went to the meeting (without our realtor) because it was supposed to be a simple check off and our realtor has a previous commitment. We sit down and realize that the builder's rep brought her broker/boss with her to the meeting.  That's funny, because he hasn't been around for any of the rest of this crazy process.  So first she says, you have to pay for the extra square footage that having stairs to the bonus room requires.  Um, what?!  I'm pretty sure we agreed to pay a significant amount of money for the bonus room, which of course requires stairs because it's on the second floor!!!  When the rep realized that we were a little ((WHAT?!)) by this, she states, "well if you don't wanna pay the additional $5,000 for that, then the architect drew up these plans which have about 6 inches shaved off of every room so that it doesn't add square footage for the stairs."  First of all, that's a no go.  You're not just gonna shave off inches from random rooms and we'll be okay with it.  IF we were going to agree to shave off some inches (which is a last resort) we'd like to do it from where we choose! Thankyaverymuch.  For instance, our master bedroom is going to be much bigger than we need/want and we'd love to take the inches from that room.  AND isn't it pretty obvious that if the floor plan you agree on has only one story and you want to add a bonus room, upstairs!, that you would have to add, STAIRS? Wait, maybe they're planning on giving us a free elevator?!

Then the builder's rep pulls out another sheet of paper that says we'll need to pay $5,000 for the addition of the dormer in the bonus room.  Yeah, remember at our last meeting when everyone was happy and NOT. ONE. WORD. was said about an additional cost involved?  That meeting, where the rep said, "I'm glad we could make you guys happy!" with a big, fat, fake smile on her face? 

At that point, I wasn't sure who was going to blow first.  I looked over at my husband who said to her, "I'd like to know why that wasn't mentioned AT ALL at our last meeting?!"

She says, "I'm sorry if I forgot to mention it but I think I told you at some point that it might cost a little extra."

So I'm thinking in my head, "Are you kidding me, you deceptive little brat?!  You're saying on top of all the extra money we agreed to pay for the addition of the bonus room, now you're gonna need an extra $10,000 for it to be to our liking and to include stairs?!"

But I said to her, "Okay, we're NOT happy with this.  You are trying to bait and switch us, you've totally misrepresented the idea of a bonus room in the first place, how dare you do this to us at this supposed 'easy meeting' when our representative isn't here and you knew she wouldn't be here."

Baron continued with telling them both how unhappy we've been with her, the builder's rep, and that we've been jerked around from the beginning.  We said we are not going to pay for that and we will be meeting with our realtor, our realtor's broker and who ever else needs to be involved in order to find a resolution. 

The rep and her broker said blah, blah, blah, we told you that most of our bonus rooms look like the long skinny unusable one did, we told you that a long time ago, blah, blah.  Then she made a rude comment about how if the money was a problem we could just add it to our mortgage.  Okay hon, listen, we got this.  We will not be seeking financial advice from you!  Add if we did add it to our mortgage we'd end up paying twice as much in interest.  We're not ignorant like you. We are not irresponsible with our money and we will be making a wise decision.  DO NOT pipe in with your free financial advice.  Why don't you work on doing your job well first!

We called our realtor when we got home and she was just as on fire as we were.  Her broker is calling the rep's boss today and we're going to the actual builder and tattle tell on this girl.  She has been nothing but deceptive, hard to deal with, and totally ignorant about everything involved with building our house.  I have a feeling if the builder actually knew how his hired realty company was handling things, he would not be pleased. 

This got crazy long, sorry!  I'm mostly writing all this so we have something to look back on later.  I want to remember all the craziness involved with building so if we ever think about it again, we'll reconsider, haha! Kidding. Kind of.

I was so proud of my hubby and I. We are both somewhat soft spoken people but we let them have it yesterday, it a professional way of course!  We'd of course love the threaten to just walk away but that's the problem, they totally have us because we want to be in that house and neighborhood!!

We'll see what transpires, everything will be on hold for now because of upcoming travel for both my husband and myself so we probably won't even get back to all the arguing for a few weeks.  We've come to realize that we'll probably have to renew our lease for a month or two but there's not much we can do about it.