saftgeek - I hate to admit it but you are all too correct about far too many attorneys! I was a high school teacher for 20 years before deciding to go to law school and I have been deeply appalled by the how truly unethical and dishonest some lawyers are. In the six years I've been practicing law, I've run into more dishonest, downright sleezy lawyers than I met incompetant teachers in twenty years of teaching school... and people are always knocking teachers for being incompetant! Shyster lawyers make me ashamed of this profession just as incompetant teachers sometimes made me ashamed of the teaching profession. I would urge you or anyone else who has evidence of a lawyer behaving dishonestly or unethically to report them to their state bar association. It might not do any good but then again, it just might. At least in Texas, I think our state bar tries to disbar the unethical lawyers whenever they can find them. It certainly sounds like your ex-boss was exactly that type. I also truly am not trying to paint GCs as dishonest. I believe the vast majority are honest folks who do their best to do a good job when building a home and, if they make mistakes, try their best to fix them. BUT, as in all professions, there are some people building homes that are either lazy, dishonest, or so downright disorganized that the homeowner who ends up hiring one of them needs to be able to go to court and get help. And, unfortunately, the contract promulgated by the Texas Association of Builders is specifically designed to protect these bottom-feeding GCs from facing the music for their bad behaviour. The funny thing is, I KNOW that it was the TAB's lawyers who drafted the d--n contract that protects the bad builders, so when I'm knocking the contract, I'm also slamming some of the members of my own profession! I actually suspect that most builders who use the TAB form contract do so because it is available to them cheaply and they don't know any more about what it really says than the homeowner does. And, so long as there are no major problems with the build - nobody is any the worse off. But, I defy any honest person who has ever READ the TAB contract to argue with a straight face that it is a fair and balanced contract. Among other things, it requires the homeowner to waive the "implied warranty of habitability". Basically an implied warranty of habitablity means that courts have said when two parties enter into a contract for one to build a home for the other, there is an implied understanding between them that the finished home will be inhabitable. The owner doesn't have to make sure to insist that language be put into the contract SAYING that the house must be able to be lived in when comleted...the courts will assume that since the contract was for the building of a home, the finished product must be something one can inhabit or it is simply not a "home." But, just in case someone WANTS just a shell - or something like that - to be built, courts will allow the parties to agree to waive the "implied warranty of habitability". Asking the homeowner to waive the implied warranty of habitablity might be fair if the homeowner wanted to build something totally new and different and the builder said, "you know, I can build that for you but I don't think it'll be something you can live in when I get done, are you SURE that's what you want?" But, I think you would have to agree that, except in those rare instances, a house should be inhabitable, just like a car should be driveable, a suit should be wearable, and a wedding cake should be edible. Would you agree to buy a new car from a manufacturer who insisted that you agree to waive the "implied warranty of driveability"? Would you purchase a suit from a tailor who refused to warrant that it would be wearable? Would you order a wedding cake from a baker who refused to guarantee that it would be edible? Why would you buy a home from someone who refused to warrant that it would be habitable????? Nevertheless, the Texas Association of Builders - with the help of its attorneys no doubt! - realized that implied warranties can be waived and that most homeowners don't ever really read or understand the contract they sign. So they put language into the form contract that waives the warranty of habitablility on every single home built under it. That means the homeowner may think he is contracting for a turn-key home but, even if the house he gets is so defective that he cannot possibly live in it - say the sewage pipe has broken in the wall so that there that raw sewage has contaminated all the insulation - the homeowner cannot argue that the builder breached the contract by building an UNIHABITABLE house. Fair????? The TAB contract also requires that the owner agree upfront to "binding arbitration" in the event of a dispute. This doesn't sound too bad...unless you happen to know a couple of facts about binding arbitration. First, arbitration is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE than small claims court even though most building disputes are going to be over amounts small enough have brought the claim in small claims court. Second, arbitrators are selected and PAID by the parties to the dispute which means that arbitrators make more money if they are selected for more cases. If an arbitrator wants future work, they have to make sure that the party that is more likely to bring them future business is happy. Care to guess which party is more likely to NEED to hire an arbitrator for a second or third or fourth construction dispute? Some studies have shown that homeowners win less than 5% of claims that go to arbitration but win about half of claims that are tried in a court of law. Even those few homeowners who are nominal winners in arbitration almost never win enough money to actually repair their homes! The TAB contract also requires that the builder receive his final payment, in full, (i.e. NO RETAINAGE) at the time of the final walk-through even though it also specifies that a punch list of items to be corrected/completed/repaired will be made at this same time. In theory the builder is supposed to return and finish the punch list. But, WHY should the unscrupulous builder bother? After all, he has already been paid in full AND the homeowner can't even sue him in small claims court due to the binding arbitration clause I already mentioned? Do you think that is fair? I could go on and on about other clauses that are in the TAB contract but I suspect I've made my point. A builder who insists on using the TAB contract after having some of its many unfair clauses pointed out to him may not actually BE dishonest but, IMHO, neither is he the kind of straight shooter I really want to deal with. Straight shooters are willing to play on a level playing field.

Here's why I don't like liquidated damages in contracts: Firstly, Liquidated Damages means that from day one you start dickering about every delay day and whether it's an exension of the scheduled completion date (not subject to liquidated damages), or if it's a delay caused by the Contractor. SO, instead of actually working on your project, the Contractor is spending time coming up with reasons why the delay isn't his fault and shouldn't be subject to a measely $100 a day liquidated damages payment. Stuff happens, delays happen,enough said. Do you want them spending time getting written confirmation from a supplier that the trucking companies are backed up and can't deliver their lumber, etc.? or do you want them spending that time coming up with a solution? Contractors don't make money on projects that aren't complete, it's in their interest as much as yours that delays not happen (unless they're a bad contractor). Make sure you get a good contractor with good references and don't waste their time and yours with excuse making and arguments. Secondly, if you require liquidated damages, you'll simply get an inflated schedule so they can cover their ass (same as above). SO, you haven't really achieved anything IMO.

Contract is signed. Realtor gets 5% if he sells to a buyer or if we send him a buyer. We decided to give him a 6% commission fee where he said he would split it 50/50 with another Realtor who brings in a buyer. He did say that with the slow market here he gets more showings with that additional .5 percent to go to the buyer's Realtor. And then he showed us a number of listingst that showed how few people give 3% to another buyer. He said in this market it is HUGE. We went for it and hope we get out of here soon. In the meantime we decide upon selling a bit lower to move out. The house goes officially on the market (MLS) on April April 15th. Brokers open to be held a week or two later on a Tuesday. Our Realtor took plenty of pictures of our house tonight while I went around removing Easter bunny decorations. I didn't want the house to look dated if it is on the market too long. And a plus was that most of our snow has melted which allowed him to get some outside shots. FWIW I have NO family in this area that can take my cats in. This is EXACTLY why I am moving. We have been in this area for most of my life bc of my husband's job and I told him when we married that I would go anywhere he needed to go but when he retired I wanted to move back home to where my family lives. And that is exactly what we are doing. In order to do that as quickly as possible we just dropped our price for the home before listing it .. another 10K We are listing now at $439,777. Hopefully we will find a buyer quickly. I can't wait to move to be near my family. I have lived too far away for too many years and I don't know how much time we all have left. But I plan on enjoying the remainder I have left near my family. I will post our MLS listing once it goes on line. Since he did pictures on the house already I wanted to see them before he listed them. I let him know those I didn't like already. But he took plenty of extras..just in case. And no cats, dog or cat perches ...but maybe some Easter bunnies are in the pictures!

We have a gem of a builder! We knew he was the "right one" after the second meeting. That said, he has worked with us through three separate house plans. The first ones were drafted before we met him, and it was b/c we decided to shop the plans after getting what we thought was an inflated price from the GC/Developer we had purchased the lot from that we met him; those plans were scrapped for a variety of reasons -- too many design compromises were going to leave us w/a nice house, but not the same house we had envisioned for 8 months. We worked with/our "now" builder through two more sets of plans (a departure and finally our third and final plan that represents the best of both worlds!) We logged more than 200 hours of meetings w/our "now" builder before ever signing a contract -- and that doesn't count the hours he accompanied us at the Architect, building supply, millwork shop, window vendor, etc. He stood by us through a lengthy sales process for our former residence and an unexpected change in employment. It's not like we're not his only build, he has 7-8 going right now, but I still get daily calls and texts w/progress reports, am welcome at the building site "anytime," and usually meet 1-2 times a week at the site (including weekends!) just to recap what has been done and prep for what is coming up next. This is the way he treats all his builds! We feel absolutely blessed and are so very grateful to have him heading up our build. Everything really does happen for a reason -- even though you usually lose sight of that when you're in the midst of things. Best of luck to you on your build!