One of the nation's largest home builders continues to steal the spotlight here at home as allegations of bad building surround Lennar Homes. Now, a former employee is speaking out. He says some of these big builders like Lennar Homes, who he once worked for, cut corners just to meet their quotas. That's because he says it's the number of homes they're after, not the quality. But he says the City is also at fault.
"They shouldn't be issuing permits if they don't have adequate inspectors," says Andrew Huisman about North Charleston City inspectors. When asked if he believes the City has enough, Huisman responded, "I would say no, in my experience seeing production building."
Huisman says there aren't enough to keep up with the growth and he should know. He's worked for the Army Corp of Engineers, custom builders and big builders, one bought out by Lennar. Huisman says quality home-building slips through the cracks when quality leadership is thrown out.
"When you start taking out key players during the day, or inspectors aren't meeting demands of housing, that's when things start falling apart.
Stuff gets missed. You have subcontractors out there on weekends, working unsupervised," says Huisman.
He says superintendents are rarely on site everyday, many times just driving by because they have too many properties to manage. Huisman believes many of the alleged Lennar building mishaps in Wescott Plantation are the result of an unmanageable amount of growth, combined with buyouts of builders trying to stay afloat. "Lennar in particular, I think they're a little more concerned with their stock numbers than they are with building a quality home and looking out for the consumer," adds Huisman.
Huisman told us some 15 inspections should take place during the home-building process. We spoke with one Wescott home owner who told us, he asked north charleston for all of his inspection records. He says his home had only four on record.
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