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.

I will just speak of my expereince. We are building a custom home, we first went to the bank and found out what we would be approved for. That gave us an idea of what we could spend. The bank also gave us information on how the loan process would go (which has been a nightmare this past week with one thing after another popping up, mainly because of issues with seperating the land) We found our builder, which had a model that we liked, but needed to shrink it a bit to meet our budget, which the builder happily did and drew up a new floor plan that was almost exactly like the one we went through. He also supplied us with a spec list (17 Pages) that spelled out many of the material/items (not everything though) The next few weeks I emailed him daily with getting prices for certain upgrades (8' sliding door instead of 6', whole house surge protector, etc, etc) It must have been 20+ items he priced out for us. We went over the list and decided what to add to the house and what we could afford, still giving us a little room incase our allowance go above what is given (Cabinents/Appliances/Flooring/Landscaping/Lighting). I also found our "Credits" for items that I planned on buying on my own (Toilets/Kitchen Sink). He re-wrote the spec list to include the items we wanted, and gave us the quoted prices in the emails. He gave us a Contract and told us to look it over, I researched it and found it was a very general contract that did not "Favor" the builder (BE CAREFUL THERE) I seen that there was a few things missing (Start and End Date) I also added a clause about if an item/material was not stated on the spec list, that the same item/brand/material used in the model home we toured would be included. The builder was happy to add these items and we signed the contract. Our builder only requested 1% of the total cost to build in order to start, so your 15% seems very high IMO. That covered his cost for the revised floor plans, that he paid for in hopes we went with him, starting the permit process, and getting the lot staked out. Our builder submitted the permits to the city(which take around 2 weeks to be approved) We should be closing on our Construction loan soon (next week hopefully) We just locked in our 120 day build Mortgage rate and couldn't believe how low it is right now. I have been keeping our builder updated on the loan process and he stated once he gets the green light he will pick up the permits and start. In your case Jenwrens, it seems like things are being rushed on both ends. I assume the zoning board needs plans to review, but you shouldn't have to sign a contract in order to get the items needed for the zoning board from your contractor. Research Research Research, this forum is a great place. Get all your prices before you sign the contract, otherwise you go through the Change Order process and who knows how much the cost of an item might be marked up once the contract is signed. My .02 would be to Meet with the bank, find out what the zoning board needs, research the builder/contractor (references etc)get a more defined/updated spec list, before even looking at the contract. I like the idea of having a lawyer look at it, just make sure the lawyer specializes in real estate or builder/buyer contracts and has some experience. Going into talking with bank, builder, zoning board, make sure you get a list of questions (research) and not only have questions, but have an idea on how you want the question to be answered, followup with additional questions if the answer isn't something your hoped for our thought would be the answer. My builder stated he hasn't had anyone in his 10+ years that has gone as far as I have in researching him and his company (a good thing IMO) I also like the idea of getting an architect, if you can afford it, which we couldn't. If you have more follow questions let me know, I don't know much, but I sure have done my research on things and am in the process now and can relate.

I am proceeding with complaints and will probably end up in small claims court. As for slander, I feel free to state my opinion, based on facts. I'd like to see them argue differently. For it to be slander, it would have to be knowingly untrue (or for it to be reasonable to know it was untrue). The atty was actually great and gave me tips and a list of what I will need in order to sue them in small claims. He knew pretty quickly that he was not going to be hired because the math did not work out. I asked what he would charge to advise us further, and that would be $1,700 minimum, so not really financially feasible based on what we hope to recover and what we are able to lay out. We are refinancing now to roll both loans into one lower rate, so cash is beyond tight. The darn appraisal came in $50k lower than last Aug, before the work was done! The previous appraisal was high (and we knew it), but this is low. The problem is our house is special now and not like the most recent sales nearby, so it is hard to comp on paper. It is so frustrating.... That means we had to cough up another $17k more than expected. All the banks care about it these days is loan to value. What stinks is we'd be qualified to buy our house in every other way, but the low appraisal is what hurts. If we were buying, we could put down less than 20% but they don't allow one to refi at less than 20% down. Our payment will drop by $550 a month, but that is logic and banks don't operate on logic, lol. So, we have to squeak by and hope that we can close. Once we are closed, we will get money back from the current mtg holders, it is just getting to that point. Dh is a teacher so no pay in the summer and I have a few deals closing in the next few months, just not yet... sigh.... I will make sure to do things in an organized manner. I am taking it slow and steady and will keep at it. I am resigned to not having a finished house for quite some time. I have been trying to make it look less disrupted. Some things will need re-doing and that means packing up some areas again, but I was tired of us not using our house properly and being crowded out of some rooms and looking at fallow construction materials collecting dust. We don't have the cash to do anything yet, so I am focused on things like organizing and unpacking into the kitchen more. If it involves laying out cash, it will have to wait. It is like triage now....

"...if you can believe it, we've paid our architect hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 years to continue to modify our plans in order to accommodate our city's ever-changing laws, as well as our own design changes. We're done paying for those changes & would much rather pass it on to someone who isn't siphoning money from us!..." Well...this is simply extraordinary. I can't imagine how you would have spent 10 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars with a single architect on a residential remodel project...unless there were numberous changes of scope and changes of mind...over time, again and again. It's simply extraordinary and defies logic. And I fully understand that many jurisdictions have very detailed requirements for design and construction approvals. And I understand your frustration at where you currently find yourself in your project. But...the archive of this forum is full of threads from many consumers complaining, after the fact, that construction costs and quality have become huge problems once construction started because of inadequate and/or confusing construction docments. Virtually every time a consumer thinks to save money on the front end by using minimal or improperly coordinated documents, they wind up being disappointed at how the construction took place, and how change orders escalated the construction costs unexpectedly. There's posting after posting about this. For example, look at the currrent thread on stairs. There's an old saying, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later!". It's exactly what you are facing. In the computer business it's, "Garbage in, garbage out!". Dispite your frustration, you need to stop and seriously reconsider how best to protect your investment and ensure that you project will proceed in a proper and satisfactory manner. Listen to the other experienced folks in this thread who have design and construction experience. They are all telling you the same thing. I sincerely wish you good luck in your project.