See that large window in the middle? Yeah, its not supposed to be there. Not only that but the foundation is missing two smaller windows and the walkout basement. Whoops?!?! The builder assured us it was an easy fix. Several weeks later it still hadn't been corrected and in fact, they and had continued to frame in the wrong window and installed a window well.
Our concerns about the house were growing exponentially. Getting in contact with the sales agent took an act of Congress and when we were able to reach her we heard the same things over and over "I'm not sure. I'll have to get back you", "I will have to discuss that with ______", "I've been really busy so I'm not sure about _____" or "I've been out of the office so I'll have to check with ______". We tried to get contact information for her superiors with no luck and felt totally out of the loop with the plan for moving forward. The straw that broke the camel's back was when we heard about the lumber delays. The lumber wouldn't be arriving until August 15th at the earliest and it would take ninety days from the start of framing for the finished project. Then we would have to wait for the appraisal and closing before being able to move.
All this was quickly adding up to my worst nightmare... having to move with a newborn baby.... while still recovering from the delivery.... in the middle of winter. Thanks, no thanks. I may or may not have cried for the better part of a day while we tortured ourselves over whether to walk away. I'm just going to blame pregnancy hormones. In the end we felt the best thing for our growing family was to start looking for a new house as soon as possible.
When we tell most people that we walked they want to know if we lost our earnest money, or deposit, and the answer is.... unfortunately, yes. Parts of the contract supported DR Horton's position that they should keep the earnest money and we felt parts supported us. In the result of dispute like this our contract stated we would have to go to arbitration to settle it. But if we went to arbitration we wouldn't be released from the contract to start looking at other houses until the issue was settled. And well, ain't nobody got time for that.
We officially forfeited our money and withdrew the offer on the house this week. Instead of viewing it as six months and thousands of dollars wasted we've decided to view it as divine intervention and an opportunity to find the home we are supposed to be in. Not going to lie, I'm kind of excited to start looking again.
