Developer Buys Back Dream Homes After Flood of Problems
Problems in a new Collin County neighborhood are so bad that CBS 11 News has learned that a well known developer is buying back some homes...The Gann’s said the builder promised a new home for free to compensate for the thousands of dollars they have put into this one. However, D.R. Horton is backing down from that offer, according to Gann.

Angered homeowners seek retribution, get frustration
Residents of Stablewood Farms on the West Side say no one ever told them that their new homes were built on top of an old sewage treatment plant.Now some homeowners are asking their builder to buy back their homes — and wondering why the city of San Antonio encouraged development there in the first place. ...Neighbors only learned about the former wastewater treatment plant last year after they started comparing problems and decided to do research on the land. “It seems like a cluster, that a lot of the children are having heath issues,”

Built on stench: Stablewood residents say homes on top of sewer reek of contamination  More than 50 homeowners want answers. They say their southwest neighborhood stinks to high heaven because their homes are on top of an old sewer plant. ...  Residents say Stablewood Farms is anything but stable. First they complained about unsteady foundations. Now they say they are falling ill. ... “The house fills up with sewer gas. It gets into the clothes, linens, bedding. I’m breathing that in, where am I to go? This is my home,” he says. "And I feel it’s contaminated.”

Labor Board Backs Workers on Joint Arbitration Cases
The National Labor Relations Board ruled on Friday that employers could not prevent workers from filing work-related group or class actions, essentially banning employment agreements at many companies that require workers to pursue all claims individually through arbitration. In a decision that will no doubt anger many companies, the lavor board concluded that a federal law protecting workers’ right to engage in concerted action trumps any arbitration agreement that bars them from bringing group claims....The ruling examined an agreement used by a nationwide homebuilding company, D. R. Horton, in which workers were required to waive their right to sue in court and instead bring all claims to an arbitrator on an individual basis.

Recent Ruling that Class Action Waivers are Illegal Shows NLRB Remains Active
In D.R. Horton, the respondent company required its employees to execute mandatory arbitration agreements covering employment-related claims. Part of the agreement required the employees to pursue any such claims individually and not as a part of any class or collective action. Company employee Michael Cuda disregarded this portion of the agreement and filed a collective action in arbitration, which was rejected in accordance with the language of the agreement. Cuda then filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, claiming that his collective action claim was protected “concerted activity” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and that by disallowing the claim, the company violated the act. 

Stablewood Farms residents say builder never told about old sewer plant
Several homeowners in a southwest San Antonio neighborhood say they were not told their homes were built over an old sewer treatment plant and are demanding the builder buy back the homes. Residents in Stablewood Farms, some wearing radiation suits and gas masks, were waving signs in protest on Monday outside the D.R. Horton corporate officers.

Neighbors: Builder Breaking Rules, Destroying Neighborhood
Now D.R. Horton is building homes in the $90,000 range, some with one-car garages and siding, instead of the more expensive stone and brick. "They don't care who they sell to. They don't care what they look like as long as they get them up and they get them sold. To me ... it seems that they don't care," Salinas said.  Neighbors like Jeremy Taub are even thinking about moving out because of the new homes. "We like the neighborhood, but if our house is going to continue to drop in value, then it's not any place I'm going to stay," Taub said.

Lawsuit sticks residents at The Farm at Carolina Forest with worries
The sprawling neighborhoods of Carolina Forest were built in the middle of a 55,000-acre parcel that used to be the Conway Bombing and Gunnery Range, which stretched between S.C. 90 and the Intracoastal Waterway south of S.C. 9. The former practice bombing range was used during World War II to train air-to-ground gunnery and bombing troops. They usually would drop dummy bombs filled with sand or flour, but they sometimes used live munitions. Much of the Carolina Forest property, including The Farm, was cleaned of all munitions - dummy or otherwise - to a depth of six feet before homes were built.  However, unexploded bombs occasionally have been found in the area. For example, Horry County police responded to a pair of live munition reports near Carolina Forest Boulevard in 2005.

Bailed out homebuilders collect fat paychecks
Horton sold just 16,703 homes in 2009. Since the depths of the downturn in 2007, the company has lost more than $3.9 billion and laid off 53 percent of its workers. But Horton has seen robust growth in one area: executive pay. The company's founder and chairman, D.R. Horton, made $17.6 million from 2007 to 2009, as his annual compensation jumped from $2 million to $7.6 million, according to Equilar, a research firm that specializes in pay.  While Wall Street bankers have received far more scrutiny -- and grief -- for their fat paychecks, homebuilder executives have been doing quite well for themselves. In 2007 and 2008, the CEOs of the 10 biggest U.S. homebuilders earned an average of about $6 million a year each in total compensation.

Trapped – Demise of Texas Residential Construction Commission doesn’t end woes of consumers entangled in the ‘builder protection agency’
“In a homeowner survey conducted by my office, I found that 86 percent of homeowners who responded said their builder failed to fix construction defects in their homes,” wrote Strayhorn, who added, “If it were up to me personally, I would blast this TRCC builder-protection agency off the bureaucratic books.” Keep in mind that Strayhorn is a Republican and winner of statewide races where she was supported by Bob Perry. Her view of TRCC was shared by many in Austin , and three years later when the agency was up for Sunset review, the staff of the Sunset Commission echoed her conclusion and recommended that TRCC be abolished... Alex Winslow of the watchdog group Texas Watch. “The clock was ticking on the legislative session and (the builders) said ‘We don’t have time to get this back to where we want, so let’s just do away with it’ – and all parties said ‘Amen’.”...“Without taking anything away from all the other victims, Dorina Corrrente is the poster child for people victimized by these builders,” said Ahmad. “The way that builder has treated her — I witnessed it in a meeting that we had. It was just a part of the overall scheme to intimidate... Their behavior has not changed when you look at other D.R. Horton subdivisions... While TRCC was in existence, (the builders) knew they had a partner in crime.  See D.R. Horton Complaints page 1, page 2