You start by moving out of your parents house first. You need some time with the sole responsibility of keeping the lights on, the insurance paid, and the grass mown all by yourself with no one else to pitch in and bail you out if you forget to pay the gas bill. If you can manage to rent a house for at least a year without financial disaster striking, then you marry your fiancee and rent for another year. I don't care if you live together 10 years before you get married, getting married lends some subtle changes to a relationship that some couples don't survive. Be sure you have a strong healthy relationship together and are good at sharing the responsibilities of living together as independent responsible adults before you stress that relationship all out of whack with a home build. After you've rented for 2 years and are married, then look for a starter home together. Something small and low in price that you you can handle the finances for if the roof suddenly needs to be replaced and you can't call the landlord to take care of it. Owning is a lot different than renting. And it's a myth that it's "always" cheaper to own than to rent. You pay so much interest on a house note in the early years of a mortgage that you do not build equity rapidly, and any home has it's expenses. Sometimes some pretty big expenses. You could be in your starter home for 5 years and come out of it with less money you've put into it over that 5 years. In fact, you are almost assured to. If you've ever looked at an amortization table, you'll understand what I'm talking about. That 200K mortgage will cost you approximately 208K over it's 30 year payment life. After paying on it for 5 years, you'll only have put $3300 towards the principle (plus whatever down payment). You will have paid 10K just in interest. You can bet that you'll have put more than $3300 in home improvements and repairs into that house during 5 years time! If you had put that same $1200 a month house payment into renting, the landlord would have taken care of all of those repairs and you wouldn't have had the gazillions of small expenses and problems that are associated with home ownership. I'm not trying to talk you out of buying or building. I'm just trying to show you that it takes a lot more thought and time than you may have put into it. It's a good thing that you are young and have the time ahead of you to really think about what to do for your future housing needs. But first, you gotta stand on your own feet and see if you stumble. Move out of your parents house!

Christopherh, I am getting tired of you implying that manufactured homes are inferior to modular homes. Yes, manufactured homes meet HUD federal standards, but modular homes need only meet the state and local building codes, and those vary a lot. The FHA and VA standards only come into play if your purchase is being financed by those agencies. And since I have purchased a home using those agencies before I can assure you that their inspections and requirements are laughably inadequate. My manufactured home has 2x6 walls on 16 inch centers, 2x8 joists, gas-filled double glazed windows, drywall ceilings and walls, and standard house size cabinetry and bathroom fixtures. Well, except my bathtub, which is a standard 5' length but much wider than tubs in most houses. A manufactured home is a modular home set on a steel chassis. The minor differences in code standards matter only in the inspection and permitting processes. If I put my home on a permanent foundation and do the proper paperwork it loses the title of a manufactured home and becomes real property and appreciates in value, just like your modular home.

Just my 2¢ I still have a few questions about your situation, but will try to offer some advice. First, you refer to a builder and the modular home company. I am a little unclear if the builder is the modular home company, or if you used a recommended builder of theirs. If the modular home company and the builder are separate entities and you made payments to the builder rather than or in addition to the modular home company they are not likely to have any exposure. Next, while it is very tempting to start looking for assigning blame in these things, it is the wrong thing to do. It doesn't matter why the basement leaks and it doesn't really even matter whose fault it is. All that is important is getting the best solution you can for the least amount of money. Of course, the perfect solution is to get the problem repaired at zero cost, however, in this situation the perfect solution is probably not attainable. I often see people spend a dollar chasing a dime, just because they are right. This means that you might be better off finding some middle ground. Finally, something about actually going to court. You should listen to your attorney on this one, but I would like to throw some things out there to think about. In reality, the advisability of cases like this is much more complex than who is right. A small builder may not have enough recoverable assets to make winning worthwhile and large builders may shield themselves in the contract, corporate structure, etc. Suing takes a lot of time and money and for a lawsuit to be your best option you have to have evidence of a positive net recovery (actual money paid to you less what you paid to get it). ETA: I wrote this a long time ago and apparently never hit submit. Forgive me if the information is no longer relevant.

Its not the OP who will see legal issues...its the modular company who had their architect sign off on the plans that will get sued in the end. Even in Yankee Barn attempts to go after the OP, the OP can turn around and go after the modular company. Since it sounded like OP was already planning to change the plans and was in the early stages I doubt Yankee Barn would go after OP. At this point either the plans were changed heavily or OP could hire a contractor to finish off the inside of the house and avoid showing the town building department as much as possible. I doubt Yankee Barns legal team would waste funds to take someone to court over an online discussion board. If OP had to pay for plans in the first place...its highly likely that the modular company contacted Yankee Barns architect and bought them. Its 2018 and with websites like this i doubt a modular company would risk it.