Two days after I made my down payment for a 'spec' home, I experienced unexpected increases to my family size.  I had to relocate, so I came in and had the sales agent write me up a notice of default. 

I told her that the down payment check had not been cashed yet and that perhaps I should just put a stop payment on it.  She assured me that this happens all the time and that the company is really good with it. 

I should not have listened to her.  Pepper Viner homebuilders have absconded with $8,826.50.  I have NOTHING to show for it.  They claim they suffered losses, but how can they suffer that much in losses in just two days?   

This is a lot of money for a teacher like me, yet no one seems to care at their headquarters.  I wish I knew someone who could reason with them.   

Can you take this to a tv station, consumer reporter perhaps?
They may not want the bad publicity.

It is possible there is some truth in what the builder is saying, though they should still give you your money back. Some builders wait to purchase anything until you have signed for your home. They may have purchased the plot of land after you signed and ordered materials. Cancellations are a routine part of the business though. I see those in builder income or P&E breakdowns every time. It’s unlikely they will have lost your entire down payment, even if there are some actual losses in such a short time.

I didn't mean to imply they wouldn't have to take the loss, just they shouldn't. Buyers certainly have to live by rule of law in these deals. Builders, it's somewhat optional. Personally if I entered a contract and paid thousands to secure it, I would expect it to be difficult if not impossible to escape. There is so much money involved to an average consumer that they should be able to get most of it back without paying a lawyer half of it in these situations. Things are not as they should be.

My point was, the builder should be entitled to a fair amount of losses when these things happen, as they do every day. You could get a lawyer to tell you that all the consumer agreements we are typically forced into if we want anything are written disproportionately in favor of the seller. The ABA would love it if we had to have a lawyer cover every detail in our lives, which is what under regulated business is in effect leading us to.

This wasn't a missed dental appointment. That has a logical and fair basis. If you had to miss an appointment, and it cost you so much that you could not afford to go to any dentist for years afterward, it would be a legitimate consumer problem that needs to be addressed by more than "read the contract."   

Dude, I understand what a contract is. I told the guy he probably lost is money. It isn't in reality, that black and white for BOTH sides. It's unrealistic to think people are going to stop buying homes because contracts are universally unfair. About the only people that understand this are victims, and we have little public voice in the matter, so few perspective buyers have a clue. It has to be our job here to begin to define what builders should do and what is fair, and arguable reasons why this is fair with both parties considered, to deflate their arguments as we make ours.

Tort reform advocates are successfully using this approach, though they also are heavily funded in their cause, unlike us. Of course none of the promised benefits to the public have or will ever appear in states that adopted reform, but that's another subject. And be realistic about the builder's side of the contract making everything defined and equitable. The contract will barley say what the builder must do, and they will breach the contract with impunity if they need to.

If we don't discuss things from a perspective of what should be done, and get a clear agenda to put forward in the political realm in this and many other related topics, we are just commiserating misfortune. While we still need case an points,  I'm ready to move beyond that.   

Signing a new home contract compared to running a stop sign? People run them all the time if they see nothing coming. Buyers don't know they could get run over by a 4 ton SUV if they sign a homebuyer contract, and sales people are trained to convince them the road is clear. Americans stupid enough to trust anyone should be ripped off by law I guess?