Kim Crumrine thought her family was the only one having problems with its home and the company that built it. So did Nancy Lee-Borden. And Alfred and Raejean Nunes.
Until they started talking to one another.
As they met and began to share stories, the homeowners found strikingly similar tales related to Kendall Custom Homes of Rockwall and its owner, Randal Davis. Problems with workmanship, dozens of unreturned phone calls, failure to follow through on repair requests and – more significantly for some – questions about possible overpayments and whether they had valid warranties.
Ultimately, more than a dozen homeowners in Rockwall and Kaufman counties began to meet and discuss problems with their new homes.
"You go to this meeting, and you see all these people who were taken in," Mrs. Lee-Borden said. "We were all taken in."
Mr. Davis did not return phone calls seeking comment, and it wasn't clear whether he had an attorney. His former attorney in an arbitration with the Nunes family said he was unaware of other disputes or complaints to the Texas Residential Construction Commission, a state agency that tries to resolve disputes between builders and homeowners.
The attorney, Drew Siegel, said he was no longer representing Mr. Davis or Kendall Custom Homes. He said that neither he nor Mr. Davis appeared at an arbitration hearing – which the company had sought to recover money Mr. Davis said the Nuneses owed him – because Mr. Davis could no longer afford to pursue the claim.
"Kendall ran out of money and couldn't pay me to finish," Mr. Siegel said. "He's out of business."
In their dispute, the Nuneses won an arbitration award totaling nearly $40,000 in home costs owed to them, attorneys' fees and arbitration expenses. Mr. Davis also was ordered to release more than $100,000 in liens on their property. Last month, the couple filed suit seeking to enforce the arbitration award. As of Friday, no response had been filed.
The Nuneses said they had to pay thousands of dollars to fix problems with the home and for subcontractors' work, in addition to not receiving thousands of dollars worth of items – including a doorbell and chimes – that they paid the builder to buy.
"The marble guy didn't get paid. The tile guy didn't get paid all of it," Mr. Nunes said. "I've got subcontractors coming to my door asking to be paid. With 16 or so families, it tells us that it's not just a personal conflict with us and him."
Included in the Nuneses' arbitration exhibits was a four-page list of items that they said hadn't been completed on their home: paint, the missing doorbell, an improperly installed kitchen island and unfinished grout, among other items.
Others have different problems. Mrs. Lee-Borden's guest bathtub didn't have hot water, for instance, and Ms. Crumrine has cracks in some areas of her home and problems with her water heater.
Both of them are preparing complaints or home inspection requests to submit to the construction commission, which the Legislature created in 2003 to handle complaints about new homes and some home remodeling. To seek claims against a builder related to the home itself – workmanship, structural problems or other issues – homeowners must work through the commission, spokesman Patrick Fortner said.
"I'd strongly recommend that all of those folks contact us," he said. "A good number of builders, when they find that a complaint has been filed with us, they'll try to resolve the issues."
He said the commission had received two complaint filings against the builder and one formal request for an inspection. All are yet to be resolved.
Although the commission cannot force a builder to fix problems with a house or follow through on a warranty, the agency's ombudsman can work between the two parties to encourage a builder to fulfill his or her obligations. Most importantly, Mr. Fortner said, the final inspection report can be used as evidence if a homeowner must sue a builder.
Also, he said, the agency can fine a builder who doesn't follow rules – such as by failing to register a home with the commission, as was the case with the Crumrine home – and may refer cases to law enforcement authorities if it appears a crime occurred.
That's what Mrs. Lee-Borden contends happened with her home construction.
"It looks like we've paid for two septic systems," said Mrs. Lee-Borden, whose home was finished about a year ago. "And I didn't catch at first that we paid for the warranty twice."
She plans to contact her bank's fraud division, and the group of homeowners has met with the Rockwall County Sheriff's Department to file a complaint against Mr. Davis.
"If the Rockwall County district attorney finds that there's a criminal event here, I'd hope he'd pursue it," Mrs. Lee-Borden said.
She and others have had a difficult time documenting the builder's expenditures, which has made proving their cases more difficult. They rarely received receipts from Mr. Davis, they said, and some documentation is vague at best.
Mr. Nunes acknowledges that he probably should have watched over construction and billing more closely but said he trusted Mr. Davis as a businessman.
"He presented himself as a decent person," Mr. Nunes said.
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