Our particular "fun" is highlighted by the fact that we bought a 5BR house (which the builder's agent Lauren Bell told us could even be made into a 6BR, by using the office). HOWEVER, when we later listed our home as a FSBO on Zillow, we received a cold call from real estate agent Lynne Elder. Lynne had called to yell at us for listing our home as 5BR; that "everyone knows" these homes only have septic system drainage fields built for 4BR.

Per Lynne, it would be fraudulent to list our home as a 5BR.

The following day -- we found out that not only was Lynne a Lauren Bell realtor; but that she also wanted to represent someone who had seen our home the prior week.


So ... we had paid for a 5BR (6BR?) home that really can only be sold as supporting 4BR. It turns out that we are not alone with this particular problem from this builder. Others have reported the builder to DPOR with the same issue.

When we spoke to our builder (and Lauren) about this, the builder spoke condescendingly about it:

" Furthermore why do you care what size your DF is, and I ask because are you looking for something to argue about or do you plan on moving 10 people into the house and need a larger drainfield? " Thomas P. Bell

As for her part, Lauren said that she did not have to tell us because this was in the MLS-system realtor-to-realtor notes. (We had no realtor, and dealt only with Lauren. So this MLS-trick was mighty convenient.).

Later, when we pushed for more answers on this, we were told that a fuzzy PDF we had been mailed about a month before settlement, that has the words "Proposed 4BS Home" (sic) on it, was how we were told.

• No one SAID anything to us about it being a 4BRDF, pre-sale.
  
• As far as we knew at purchase, the DF put in for the home matched the number of actual bedrooms they sold it as.
  (Why would we think any differently?)
  
• No one even pointed out the possible issue (and we ONLY dealt with Lauren. No one else.)
  
• There was never any verbal mention that only a 4BRDF was put in.
  There was NO DISCUSSION at all about this issue.

See "Places to Report" for DPOR info.

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This wood rail is shifting out from the house; carried by a pole beneath. →

We are 8 months into our warranty period; and after first saying that both would be replaced -- the builder now says neither is covered. (We are looking into how the Virginia 5 year building construction warranty applies).

At the 8 month mark -- only 2 of the 19 groups of things on our builder's warranty punch list have been completed. When we started to really push to get things done, Kathy Hudson (Office Assistant, who apparently is in charge of ALL customer repairs) said she could only schedule ALL of the work to happen within a 1 hour period. Knowing that this meant whole teams of contractors would be running all over the house, and that this meant there would be no way to watch the work of -- nor to ask questions of them; we declined this seemingly spiteful circus gesture.

We have waited 5 weeks for the one guy who can fix doors to come out and correct a number of door issues. ALL of which have been there since our house closing.

← A supporting beam of the porch.

If you follow the yellow line down, you can see the beam twisting in different spots. TBOV originally said (in writing) that they would replace it. Later they said it was not covered by the builder's warranty.
The house is 8 months old.

The two items in these photos comprise 1 of our 19 groups of issues.