Leave the door up : )

Move.

Call an attorney regarding the misrepresentation lol. See if you can add a shed bump to the back side.

Get a Cadillac Escalade: It's 16.7 The door will close with room to spare

That's about it.

Have a good cry, and then contact an attorney to find out your legal options.

What is on the other side of the garage please? If you don't mind losing part of a laundry room, a good framer could give you another foot or two in an afternoon.

Thank you, Joseph, if only it were a simple room. Attached is the floor plan. Note the pictures of SUV and pickup truck in the garage with plenty of space around each vehicle, totally a lie.

Read the fine print- somewhere there is probably a line re estimated dimensions/sq footage. They may argue the boundaries are exterior vs interior measurements. Small garages are common place in new builds as town are enforcing land/build ratios and the builder makes more $ on interior finishes. Additionally larger garage may have been an upgrade or lot dependent. And the pic with the autos- there is no indication of the make/model so the truck may be a small truck certainly not an F150 and the car a prius.... Given the housing mkt you may be able to sell and get out ahead but good luck finding a large garage in a townhouse. And your pict absolutely has the disclaimer right under the dimensions !!!

Well, 18'-4" should fit almost every vehicle except a truck. You may need to pull all the way in and walk around the back with the door open, but it's possible (Honda Pilot is an enormous car and is 16'-4" long so you would have 2 feet to spare). Get a tennis ball and hang it from the roof so you know how far to pull in. You won't have room for anything else in your garage, though. If you only have one car, pull in at an angle, which might give you a little more space.

As far as legal recourse - you unfortunately don't have much. You could get a real estate lawyer and try to say it was misrepresented, but it was your realtor's (and your) responsibility to grab a tape measure and make sure the home would work for you. Our last home was misrepresented to us on the MLS as well - our 4th bedroom dimensions were shorter than the MLS by 1' each way. We didn't measure - and we learned our lesson.

Also, FWIW most tract builds have tiny garages. If you build a home with a tract builder, a lot of them have options to increase the size of the garage - obviously for $$$. We are building now and got the 2' garage extension added onto ours.

Sorry but the dislclaimer was right there and up to you to measure if that is a huge issue for .Why would you assume after 2007 that garages were larger .IMO it is always buyer beware .

Google standard garage size and 20 feet deep repeatedly comes up. My current car is 188 inches long and when pulled in with one inch in front, 30 inches in back, just enough to walk behind and open the lift-gate with garage door shut. There's plenty of blame to go around, myself for agreeing to buy the house, the seller's agent who repeatedly lied, the buyer's agent who was more concerned about her friendship with the other agent than my rights as a buyer. (Correction: car is 190 inches long)

I just got to wondering, so I checked: the internet says that a Suburban, the largest non-commercial vehicle I could think of, is 225.7 inches long or 18.8 ft. Nope, won't fit in your garage. Nor would most full-sized pickups, but they don't fit in lots of garages. Otherwise, I'd say you can manage to get most cars in yours.

Thanks everyone for responding. It's a very tight fit lengthwise and widthwise with my current car.

Well, you can do what most people do and not use the garage for the car. On my suburban street with single family houses not one person uses the garage for the car. Everyone uses it for a utiltiy area, myself incuded.

It is understandable, though why you are displeased and feel cheated. You had planned on using it for your car and now you cant.

The truth is that you probably have very little in the way of legal options.

Your car FITS. And beyond that, it's a move to a free standing home in the burbs with fewer "restrictions"...or driveway parking.

Live/learn/inspect vigorously any home for the elements most important to you. Don't expect the realtor to ASK you.

Your "rights" were declared in the realtors contract, and you SIGNED at a closing.

There's a very looooong line behind you for a problem of this magnitude : ) Count some blessings.

Thank you Jan for telling it like it is. :)

If it makes you feel any better, after looking for an affordable house for a year I found a perfect-for-me house with a one car garage in a great neighborhood. Perfect I thought! I've always parked my cars in garages so was thrilled. I didn't take the time to actually measure said garage, or notice that nobody in the neighborhood parked inside. Surprise! My Honda Civic didn't fit inside my 1928 garage. Anyway, it's been 11 years and it's fine. I park in the driveway and the garage makes a great storage shed.

Buying a home is so stressful! Once you settle in you'll probably forget about the garage issue because you'll be so thrilled with your new home. Best wishes.

All of the other issues you speak of are of no concern in this post and IMO most people can live with much smaller cars so get a smaller one if this is such a huge deal to you

that’s a needlessly nasty response!

HU-996389822: I totally agree that Patricia Colwell’s comment is quite rude.

Whenever she uses ”IMO”, its always a nasty comment.

“I just got to wondering, so I checked: the internet says that a Suburban, the largest non-commercial vehicle I could think of, is 225.7 inches long or 18.8 ft.”

I have a Suburban, you also have to factor in the enourmous liftgate. Id have to build a pole barn to fir my Suburban and my husbands Silverado. But if I had to choose between keeping the Suburban or parking in the garage, Suburban wins every time.

I may not agree with or like some of the comments here, but I am grateful to get balanced feedback. It's been really helpful to receive all comments so far because a reality check is what I needed. Thank You!

We all occasionally need a check, , do we not? But as friend always says.....".if it can be solved with money, even money you don't yet have? it ISN'T a problem"

Actual size for the two car garage is 20’6” wide x 18’4” deep, but advertised as 21’9” wide x 19’5" deep.

Thing is, they're measuring the exterior space ... and you care about the interior, usable space.

You cannot win this thing: Even if they showed you a floorplan, you had every opportunity to view the place /measure it yourself. The floorplan even says something about "this is all approximate" at the bottom.

Realistically, your options are to squeeze into your car, trade for a smaller car /instead of a larger one, or park outside the garage. I know, disappointing.

I have a friend with a similar situation: she has to pull in with her car allll the way over to the right (or she can't open her driver's door). Her habit: stop the car, open the garage door, the kids get out, walk into the garage and enter the house ... then she pulls into the garage and squeezes out on her side. Her house is large, all brick with a pool and in a prime neighborhood with huge lots -- I'd guess it's worth near a million. This is not just a tract-house thing.

And the pic with the autos- there is no indication of the make/model so the truck may be a small truck certainly not an F150 and the car a prius.

Yep, those pictures are misleading, but not illegal.

IMO it is always buyer beware .

That is not just your opinion.

Sad you got lied to about that garage.

After you re read all the paperwork regarding the sale, especially anything you signed, if you actually want to pursue voiding the sale, do talk to a lawyer and take all your paperwork -- but expect that to be costly and, possibly/likely, unsuccessful. (Not a lawyer; just lay opinion -- realtors deal with lawyers a lot and tend to CYA).

You can certainly report the realtor to the BBS and Chamber of Commerce and any other agencies that might, at some point, be contacted about customer satisfaction. You could even talk to local media or go on social media, including the realtor's Facebook page, etc., and vent -- if warning others about the misrepresentation or some degree of payback matters to you.

More practical choices for consideration might be to invest in a smaller car, perhaps one of those hybrid or electric vehicle of the future, and/or begin house hunting.

Sounds like you are out of options. Have you ever noticed that people with single car

garages almost never park their car in the garage because they can get the car into the garage but cannot exit the car. Hopefully everything else in your new home worked out. We all learn from experience. Good luck in your new home

Hope you love your new house and that this becomes a non-issue over time. We just came back from visiting our son in California. Interior square footage in his neighborhood of vintage homes is at such a premium that garages are used as living space or for storage. Here in the Arizona desert its a different story. Leaving a car unprotected is an invitation for packrats to dine on the wires and make a nest in the engine.

Like many others, we didn't double check the interior measurements of the double garage when we bought our house. We can fit two small cars in, just. Everyone in the cars except the driver has to get out in the driveway, because there isn't space to open the doors on both sides. And parking the two cars has to be millimetric precise 😞. Not much space for storage, to say the least.

Fortunately, we don't need or want larger cars so this has been a manageable issue (plus we will probably go down to one car soon). If this is the only issue with the house, I'd probably live with it, and maybe explore options for a smaller car in the future. There are some good ones out there.

What's the problem? ;)

My mother's vertical condo (a Miami term meaning rooms are stacked above garage) has that problem. Hers is nearly new construction (2014) in Hallandale Beach. She has Lexus small SUV/Crossover 300RX. It is shorter then Camry. Likewise it cannot fit length wise into her two car garage. Width is good, but the contractor build this odd 10" concrete platform that effectively cuts garage depth by almost 3 feet. Car's back end juts out by 3" , so garage door cannot be closed. This is on every unit on the property. My proposed solution is install DYI car service ramps, like found in auto parts shops, that would allow her Lexus to ride up the front wheels on to the ramp.

Legally wise, if the unit is built to conform to local zoning and construction regulations, at time of County or State approval, then there is no legal recourse. Unless, the unit was advertised to feature a garage for oversized vehicles. We see those in rural areas, where people have trucks and large SUV's. In South Florida coastal construction, garages have a 10" or higher concrete platform that is about 36" deep, cutting available length by 3 feet. This a measure against flooding during hurricanes and its storm surges. I think that an inexpensive ramps , for DYI mechanics, from auto parts store, may ameliorate the problem, by allow car's front end to ride the ramp.