Print Exclusive: Troubles with home could have implications for others on St. George Island
Inside, the house has undergone an autopsy. Sandy Bifano's notes of what engineers found when they peeled back the wallboard are scrawled everywhere: missing beams, sagging wall systems, missing and incorrectly installed hurricane straps. The list goes on, from inadequately attached decks to a flawed staircase that makes it nearly impossible to get appliances and furniture upstairs.

Builder to resell Rivermist homes
Homes in the Rivermist neighborhoods that builder Centex Homes has offered to buy back will eventually be repaired and resold. Sherwin Tolentino, who is among the 27 evacuated homeowners who have had their certificates of occupancy revoked by the city, was told he had until Monday to accept the builder's buyback offer. The offer covers the purchase price, closing costs, moving expenses, home improvements, utilities for the last few months and some attorney fees. But Tolentino is unhappy that the offer does not include damages. He said he would have been in better financial shape if he had rented an apartment for the past few years, which would cost about half the price of his $2,000-a-month mortgage payment, and pocketed the rest in savings. “They're pressuring me to sign their proposal or they're going to kick me out,” Tolentino said. “It's just tough for me to swallow. I need to start my life all over again.”Dolenga said Tolentino is the only resident who was given a deadline for the buyback offer.

LIUNA Calls on Pulte-Centex to Take Responsibility for Rivermist Wall Collapse
WASHINGTON - (Business Wire) LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement in response to Pulte-Centex’s decision to not attend a meeting with San Antonio city government officials and Rivermist homeowners regarding the Jan. 24 collapse of a retaining wall in the Rivermist subdivision that forced the evacuation of 91 homeowners.

Bill seeking accountability in arbitration to become law (Printed April 2, 2010)
A new law initially sponsored by Maine Rep. Sean Flaherty (D-Scarborough) and signed by Gov. John Baldacci on Wednesday will enlarge the fine print by requiring companies and individuals providing arbitration services in Maine to post results of their decisions on a Web site. Basic consumer information, including potential expenses and whether an attorney may be present at a hearing, also must be posted...A 2009 report by the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection showed eight individual arbitration providers from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and three national firms helped decide 2,500 cases in Maine during 2008.

Homebuilders' group spent $1.1M in the 4th-qtr lobbying for homebuyer incentives, tax breaks
The homebuilding industry's main trade association spent $1.1 million in the fourth quarter lobbying Congress, the White House and several government agencies on housing, taxes, health care and other issues, according to a disclosure report. The National Association of Home Builders shelled out about 49 percent more than the $740,000 it spent for lobbying in the prior-year period. It paid out $750,000 in the third quarter of 2009. The NAHB also lobbied the federal government on legislation involving immigration, labor, banking, air and water quality, energy, bankruptcy, endangered species, small business, torts, transportation and trade, according to the report filed on Jan. 15.

TAKE THE POLL: Rivermist resident claims buy-back offer unfair; dream collapsed
The hotel stay is running out for people who were forced out of their homes in the Hills of Rivermist subdivision.  Some say they are about to be homeless on Easter, held hostage by Pulte-Centex.  Several homeowners feel the building company offered them an unfair price for their homes. In 2008 Sherwin Tolentino bought his dream house in the Rivermist subdivision. But just a year-and-a-half later, a major retaining wall collapsed and the property was deemed unsafe by the city. See KENS For Latest Poll Results

Home sellers beware: Fee might be hidden
Here's a new concept in real estate: Buy a house, and when you go to sell it years later, owe the original developer or builder 1 percent of the sales price. Freehold Capital Partners, a company started in Texas, is selling developers across the country on a plan that would attach a private transfer fee to homes, allowing developers to profit for generations. The fee, written into neighborhood restrictions, would encumber the property for 99 years and throw 1 percent of the sale price back to the developer — or his or her estate or another investor — and Freehold each time the home changes hands. Read Comments

Shifting ground destroying neighborhood fences
Most Houses in the Enclave of Willow Pointe are 3 to 5 years old. But some of the fences look a lot older because the ground is shifting and washing away, pulling some of the fences apart. She says they tried to work it out with the builder centex, but she says the company told her the fence was not under warranty.  When we talked to CenTex the company spokesperson said they were not familiar with the case, but confirmed that the fence did not have a warranty and that it did not actually build the fence. It was subcontracted out.

Homebuyer Tax Credit Backfires
Realtor associations in Chicago, Memphis and elsewhere are organizing market-wide "open houses" on April 10 and 11. At least one builder, KB Homes, is hosting a "48 hour house hunt" to attract buyers who can earn an $8000 credit if they are first-timers and $6500 if they are repeat buyers. "Homebuyers who want to take advantage of the limited-time federal homebuyer tax credit still have time to choose a newly constructed KB home...

Rivermist crack may be causing widespread foundation issues
The massive crack in the ground that's damaged more than a dozen homes in the Rivermist neighborhood is threatening to rip open an even-deeper financial rift for the home builder...Homeowners say they have seen problems for months, and those problems -- such as cracks in ceilings and the foundation -- have only gotten worse since the crack in the retaining wall opened up. Using equipment to check for rises and drops in the foundation, engineers mapped out the homes.

New details in city's bribery investigation
We're told De Leon was not directly taking bribes from developers, but instead allegedly found a way to scam the system for personal profit. According to the source, investigators discovered that De Leon is secretly a partner in a company that helps builders expedite their city permits. According to the source, investigators discovered that De Leon is secretly a partner in a company that helps builders expedite their city permits.

AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN
See the latest on the Rivermist Community  See Photos

LIUNA Calls on Pulte-Centex to Take Responsibility for Rivermist Wall Collapse
It is unfortunate that instead of acting in good faith by meeting the home owners of Rivermist and taking full responsibility, Centex has chosen to attack our organization which has worked with homeowners across the nation to hold the nation’s largest corporate home builder accountable. Pulte-Centex has no credibility in telling the homeowners of Rivermist what is in their “best interest” after putting the safety and financial well-being of families in jeopardy. This is about whether Pulte-Centex will take full responsibility and buy back all the homes and we are here to support the homeowners of Rivermist who are trying to restore the opportunity to seek their piece of the American Dream.

Pulte Homes' lending is under scrutiny
A legal battle is under way between the Arizona Attorney General's Office and one of the state's biggest homebuilders, Pulte Homes. Details on the Arizona attorney general's investigation aren't public while the investigation is ongoing, but the Pulte lawsuit indicates the state prosecutor is looking into the builder's lending arm. According to the lawsuit, Pulte has provided the Attorney General's Office with 70,000 pages of documents. Both Pulte Homes and Pulte Mortgage are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The Christian Science Monitor News Service 1979:
How to ensure a Home Builder Does Good Work
... Improved protection for new-home buyers is almost sure to come.  One indicator is the strong new interest in housing problems shown by the Federal Trade Commission.  The watchdog agency's staff recently completed a major discussion paper on consumer housing problems...Elizabeth Dole warned that consumer patience with new home problems is 'rapidly running out" and that unless there is industry wide self-regulation, "You can brace yourself for full-scale, hard-hitting regulation from the government." 

Read more...