Whenever a site builder screws up and doesn’t finish a customer’s home, only the immediate local community knows about it. If a modular home factory has a problem, everyone knows including the other factories. It sours people’s taste for modular housing, the most efficient way to build a new home.
With that said, I just spent some time talking with a fellow from Old Greenwich, CT that bought a home from Taylored Building Solutions this year. He experienced something that no homeowner should ever have to go through. Unfortunately, when the word “modular” is part of the conversation, it becomes a different animal, one that keeps eating away at all the good things modular brings to housing.
He has finally moved into his home with his wife and two small children, ages 2 and 4, after living in a very small apartment waiting for his house to finished.
Here is the email he sent me along with additional comments we discussed on the phone. The we discussed on the phone comments are in red. He has asked that I not use his name but said that anyone that wants to talk with him can contact Modcoach.
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I have had serious issues with Taylored. I ordered my house last December 2nd, with a promise of delivery of 4 weeks. Instead, it arrived 13 weeks later, on March 2nd. So we had to incur 2 months of short term rental because of
it. After ordering the home and told it would arrive about January 15, 2012, he heard nothing further until one week before the house was delivered.
That wasn’t all.
On set day, we had about 8 hours of delays. Why? Because they had made permanent walls instead of temporary ones that could be taken down to join the boxes. 8 hours of delays means more costs for crane, tow truck, and police escorts. about $5k extra. But that wasn’t all. He explained that the “temp” walls were secured with hundreds of nails which took so much time that a one day set turned into a 2 1/2 day set.
We then discovered $6.5k worth of electrical work not done (wiring not done, wiring not long enough, mistakes, etc.) which we had to have an electrician do. Most of the wires were not labeled!
Also, the carpentry work they did had several mistakes, accounting for another $5k worth of issues. Then we had plumbing issues; about about few thousand. All of which, we had to have locally done out of pocket cost since they would never come out to resolve it. We had a broken window at delivery, and it took 6 months for them to replace it. They (including Tom Schott) have said they will pay, but
of course, they haven’t. Their service contract means they are supposed to
pay us. We are over $20k at this point.
So, I would recommend trying to get out of the contract and go elsewhere. Your delays in build will only be the beginning. Here he is talking to Cheri, the woman who is living in a camper because of her house not being delivered.
We have filed a complaint with the consumer protection agency at the State’s attorney’s office. And our builder’s lawyer is now moving ahead.
Here is an interesting note: The house was basically a finished shell without cabinets, flooring or siding and still the factory couldn’t build it on time or without major problems.
This is one of those stories that will continue to haunt the industry for some time.
