Builder's Home Warranty null and void because of his death?

[layla72372]

Hi,

My husband and I bought a new house 1 year ago. When we bought it the builder gave us a 1 year builder's warranty. During the last year we have sent a letter to the builders home asking him to fix some things that aren't right with the home. Example: Slidin glass doors leak when it rains, the heater wasn't vented correctly, etc.
After we sent the letter the company who put the heater in showed up at the door and fixed the heater. Then we never heard anything else from anyone. In the mean time, the builder dies from cancer and his family tells us no one is responsible to fix anything in our home because the builder was a sole propriater and when he died everything died with him. Is this true. Do we have any recourse?

Thanks, Layla

[ConfessionsOfARealtor]

Layla, the Sad truth is that you may have not even had any sort of recourse that made financial sense even if the Builder were still alive. It often cost more to go for the "recourse" than to pay to fix the "issue" yourself.

Money, Time, Stress and than not getting "justice" anyway is what happens quite often.

There are no Real Enforceable laws to protect the real estate consumer. If your damages is less than 20% of your purchase price, in my experienced opinion, your better off to pay and fix it and try and take it as some sort of tax loss, I have seen cases where builders and Realtors lie, commit fraud and it's proven and sill no way to get money out of them.

The Realtors E and O insurance is very misleading to the Real Estate Consumer.

This insurance only protects the Realtor, I imagine that the Contractors insurance company would fight you just as hard to pay. And the whole process is draining, humiliated - the system (Realtors - the community-local contractors) all treat you like the criminal when in fact you are the victim.

So what do you do, first... email me your story crystal@savvybroker.com so that I can spread it around and help others, and learn more about looking deeper before you buy next time. I know this does in NO way help you this time, I know the Hardest way of all, it happened to me to the tune of a $800,000.

Home Inspectors, Engineers, Realtors, Attorneys really can't help you the way you might think they can.

However, if the Contractor had insurance, and that insurance was in place when you bought your home, when he built it than a letter, a probe into the matter from your real estate attorney directly to the contractors insurance company may get you some "damages" quite often there is no "pockets" to get your money from.

Don't listen to the grieving family, they may not have even known what was going on during the guys career. Even if the guy was alive the family would say "go away - you have no recourse, no one is responsible".

Find out if he was insured and who it was, and get the attorney to send them a demand letter, start a blog about it, create some noise, complain to ANY local builders association, state agency, Realtor board, and let them know that this is NOT right and you do not intend to sit quietly, however, don't let an attorney create the noise other than the letter, this is expensive. If the insurance is there, than go for it. Of course you will need advice from a real estate attorney, most will treat you like the criminal. So get your own proof.

But Again if the damage is under $10,000 than just pay to fix it and take a loss somewhere if you can, a lawsuite will, most like cost more than this, a demand letter should be a relatively cheap way to see if you have a case at all.

I am NOT a Real Estate Attorney, I am a Real Estate Broker Owner, this is Only my opinion based on some pretty scarey experiences.

There is NO protection for the Real Estate Consumer.
Crystal L. Cox
SavvyBroker dot com