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From Spring 2023:
At first I did not even want to purchase a home in Dothan, as I was looking for another rental home & thought I had found a decent one, but the listing required me to call a local Real Estate agent, who turned out to be Darrell Reid. He talked me into looking at homes in the area, and after an exhaustive search, he found a New Listing that I thought would fit my needs of, nice and new, not too flashy, but surely something that I could sell rather quickly if I needed to.
The realtor did a fine job of helping me find that house, but maybe not the best of jobs of not keeping me from getting screwed at Closing. No offense to him, because he (and I) did not expect them to not complete certain items prior to closing, and I was shocked myself that the Builder, Alpine Development, of the Dothan area, would wait until the last minute(literally), to even clean up the house, and then failed to even do that as I had to leave to go to Closing.
What was I supposed to do? Summer told me, “I will come back tomorrow and finish cleaning the floors, and I have the Garage door code, so it will be easy to do.” So, I allowed that, thinking, at least she will sweep and mop the floors and my Movers were not coming until the day after (that next day). Well, I had a ton of moving to do on my own, and did so all that day after Closing, but guess what? She did not show up at all, and I had do clean the floors myself.
And it gets worse from there. I had recalled that the first time I looked at the house with my realtor, there was much that was not done. The A/C return area was not complete but wide open, and there was a lot of touch up paint to finish, but all of the appliances, (except one), were all in place and installed and working(I assumed). It was the Dishwasher that was not in place, not installed, and obviously, not working. The second time I returned, the dishwasher was in place and it looked like it would be working, however, by the time my first weekend arrived in the home(after closing), I noticed that the dishwasher was not fully installed - not mounted to the top(under the Granite counter top) & maybe not even on the sides, but the power was connected, and the hoses too. So, who would do that? Certainly not a realtor, or a possible buyer. It had to be the Builder or an agent of, right? So, why on earth would you shove a dishwasher in place (in that hole) and not fully install it? Maybe cause there is something wrong that it can’t be installed correctly, or there is something wrong with the dishwasher?
Anyway, I had much difficulty at first in letting the builder agent know, who turned out to be Jason, and he immediately assured me that he would come by the following week(when I was home) to take care of it - by then it was already some 3 to 4 weeks after closing. He came by and looked at it, and said that he needed to come back &/or send someone else to take care of it, and that person never came to take care of it. Last week, I told him about it, since they were working hard to finish up the home next door(way behind on), and he said, “he never came by?”
It took me talking to one of the Builder's private contractors to beg him to come fix the dishwasher issue, and a few of the top other complaints on my list, and be paid by the Builder, which still left many other issues(some not discovered until after closing), to be fixed. And not one time did the Builder or reps come by my house to look at the work done or inquire about other items needing to be fixed.
Also, there are other items that need to be fixed too. By the way, my Realtor had talked me out of hiring an Inspector to examine the home, saying, “These Builders know what they are doing, and you should not have any major issues” - don’t get me wrong, I did give my realtor, Darrell, much credit on finding this home, and he did catch(at the last minute - day before closing), that the Insulation in the Attic had not been placed - they did it the day of Closing btw. But I sure wish that I had hired an Inspector.
[PART ONE}
