OT: Do builders ever finish on time?

[GraysMom]

The above poster had it pretty good! We signed the papers in Sep/2004 with a completion date of Sep/2005 (custom home). We had to move to a hotel on 11/1/2005 because the people that bought our house could not wait any longer (understood), and we lived in that hotel with 2 boys until we moved in here on 12/9/2005. NOT FUN. The house wasn't even completely done, we had workers in & out of the house at 6am for 2-3 more weeks doing the finishing work! We got our temporary CO on Christmas Eve, thank goodness, I was so nervous the township was going to come evict us!

Yikes Tara! I would have gone crazy! DH wants to build a home eventually, and I keep thinking of all the horror stories I've heard. Ideally we'd like to pay off our current house and rent it out, so maybe we could just continue living here until the new house would be built. A hotel room for vacation is fine, not my idea of a great place to live (especially when kids and pets are involved).

 

[TaraPA]

Hey GraysMom! Hi Jessamy! The hotel was a nightmare - it was down by the turnpike in Q-town so DH could hop on the t-pike to head to Philly for work. One DS was just in 1/2 day kindergarten so I had to drive all the way up to the school for one son at 9am, then back up at 12:30 to take the other one, then back at 3 to pick them both up. Our cat went missing the whole time too, I was so upset. The forced air heat in the hotel caused DSs asthma to get out of control, and of course the nebulizer & meds were packed away in storage. I carried dirty laundry in a small hamper in the back of my truck back & forth to a friend's where she let me use their washer & dryer, but she had her own family's wash to do & we could never get on a good schedule. I could go on & on....these all seem like little things now but they were such a big deal back then. I'm sure you don't care but if you want to take a peek there are a lot of my paint & house pics on a Budget Board thread right now titled "OT granite countertops" - so it was all worth the wait. Seeing the pictures makes me realize that. It just didn't seem like it back then! So everyone whose house is running behind - hang in there!

 

[TaraPA]

Sometimes they don't finish at all, and then you have to sue them, and then even if you win, you have to wait 3 years to be made whole because the poor contractor can't be expected to just pay you out of pocket the whole amount he scammed you for, even though you gave him a giant lump sum to begin with . . . . .

Oh wait - was that out loud?

Oh that's awful. Our builder (after finishing 3 months late) left owing us $7000...that was 2 years ago. They did give us $2000 last summer & have been doing odd jobs for us to try & make good on it. They're lucky I'm a patient person & have a heart, most people would have had them in court 30 days after closing. If it was for more money, or they weren't attempting to make restitution you betcha I would have contacted a lawyer by now.

 

[eyeheartgoofy]

My answer would be no. We had our basement finished. It was supposed to take 6 weeks and took 12.