KB Homes Construction Defects, Fraud, Warranty Violation, Bad Home, Drainage, Centennial Colorado

I purchased my home 4 years ago and that is when the nightmare began.

Since I purchased my home I have had my driveway replaced 2 times, Front walk once, entire front concrete stoop repaired 3 times and finally replaced, Ceiling resurfaced, tile counters repaired 4 times, railing repaired 3 times, Multiple blind repairs and replacements and the list goes on.

The common element to all of the above issues is that they are the result of sub-standard workmanship and construction defects and that they all had to be repaired over and over again and in some cases are still not fixed.

Now you might wonder why I am posting if these have all been resolved. Well they have not. The grand daddy of the problems is still not fixed and has created a situation where my home value has been seriously compromised.

My Home sits on a slight hillside and I have a walkout basement that I paid and additional $8500.00 in premium construction costs. This basement is considered a "Slab on Grade" floor by the Uniform Building Code and is accepted by the industry as such. While most basements are categorized as non-living space and storage, garden level and walkout basements are normally seen as being used as living areas and that is why you pay and increased construction cost to have them built as such. A "Slab On Grade" floor is any floor that you can walk out of to the lots grade with out having to climbs steps to do so. My basement meets this requirement.

To cut to the chase my home is heaving due to incorrect and faulty drainage on my lot and in the community as a whole. KB Home has refused to fix the problem and instead states that they will address the community drainage issue on a house by house basis. This mean that they fix one home and break another and never really correcting anything, with everyday bringing them closer and closer to the end of warranty.

Some of the "Fixes" they have built are a 1.5 foot deep culvert along side a home that is actually below the level of the street drainage point and would need to flow up hill to function. KB Homes has placed a second sump pump outdoors in the bottom of a window well with a pump and electrical outlet to remove water from the back foundation and pump it to the side of the house, this may work until the power goes out in storm and then the flooding problem is still their, owner will need to disclose this if they ever want to sell the home, can you say value killer!!! This list goes on and on.

My particular home has the seen the basement floor heave as much as 1.5 inches on the slab directly in front of the door to the backyard (major safety Issue), the sewer pipes have heaved more than 3-4 inches and have completely collapsed all the expansion joints and are now deflecting from their wall mounts. The caissons holding the main structural cross brace are not built to code and because of this have forced the main beam to deflect upwards resulting in cracked walls, stuck doors and who knows what hidden structural damage.

I have submitted these issues to KB Homes on multiple occasions. I have had the VP of customer service, the VP of Operations for Colorado, The VP of Construction and many customer service reps in my home to tell me they will fix the problem and later recant, or tell me why they cannot or will not fix the problem or to ask me what exactly I want them to do to fix the problem or to tell me they will fix the problem and then never do so. In every single case nothing has been done or KB Homes has attempted a shoddy fix.

I have an "Express Warranty" that spells out exactly what the tolerance for a slab on grade floor is, the building code for the caissons is clear and yet KB Homes is not willing to do what is required to fix the problems right. The last offer was for them to come out and saw a 10 foot square out of my basement and repour that area. This is a patch not a fix and does not address any of the real problems.

On one occasion KB Home sent an engineer to my home to look at the problem. This women walked into my home had me walk her around and show her the problems in both the basement and with the cracking walls and such. The engineer looked at the house and at no time did she measure anything, check with a level or perform any other diagnostic procedures. The engineer was in my home for a grand total of approximately 30 minutes. The engineer then submitted a 3-4 page report saying that everything in the house was OK and that everything was within spec (Fraud).

How can you tell if a floor is level and within spec if you do not check it with a level. How can you check if a beam holding up the house is still doing its job if don't measure. When you look at an expansion joint and see it at full compression does that not violate spec? I assume that this person was an employee of KB or depended on KB for her continued employment.

Another case involves a rep from KB Homes named Adam Coats. Adam is a representative from KB Homes who was sent out to discuss the drainage problems I was having. After discussing the issues several times with Adam and walking with through the area showing him directly how wide spread the problems are Adam agreed to host a meeting with all of the affected home owners and come up with a plan to fix the problem once and for all. We were in the process of arranging this meeting when all efforts stopped.

Adam finally came back and stated that he had been told by an upper level VP not to do this and instead that they would require each home owners to address this individually and resubmit a warranty request for correction. When I started this process with Adam I gave him copies of warranty requests from all of the effected home owners and told him that the owners had agreed t have me spear head the effort. Once again KB trying for divide and concur and to make the process so onerous that people will just give up.

I have looked on the WEB and I found that this type of behavior by KB is the rule rather than the exception. KB homes counts on the fact that they area 20-40 billion dollar company and that because of this no one can touch them. I had a person from KB actually say this to me one on one.

I have just sent a letter to my Mortgage company, KB Home and other parties claiming protection under the Magnusson-Moss warranty act and under 16 C.F.R. preservation of consumer rights and remedies.

For anyone who is interested I have taped conversations, emails and reams of documentation supporting the above claims. Colorado is a single permission state so these recording are legal and admissible. I would love to talk to someone about a class action law suit. KB Home built 245 homes here in Grandview and I would believe that at least 50-70% of the homes have a drainage problem of some sort and damage to go with it.

James
Erie, Colorado
U.S.A.