F
flyboy
Guest
We entered into a cost plus building contract with a builder who gave us a writen estimate quote as to how much it should cost. The contract has no cap and is now almost completed with the total construction cost $56K (15%) over his number he gave us when we signed the contract. We are going to be in a county home show and was "promised" because of discounts the total cost would be less than this number on the cost plus contract. This is even after us deleting over 30 items to save cost and only being $5K over on our allowances which we had to pay cash for.
During construction he has had sub-contractors do work on the house without our seeing their quotes or signing off on the price. Our contract states that "the purchaser will be consulted before major decisions are made on appliances, fixtures, cabinets, windows, doors, trim, stone siding and decore, etc." They had a landscaper designer draw up a plan (our expense) and then never showed us the plan before having the work compleated. They also had our furnace system started before we gave the OK to install a 4 zone system and then after the fact saw the bill which was $2.5K over our allowance and was told it would cost $1K to rip out the work they had done.
Because the house is costing $56K more than we wanted to spend and the fact he has breached our contract by not showing us quotes before work being started we feel that we should be able to cancel this contract without penalty and get a full refund on our $40K earnest money. We also are unhappy on how the house was placed on the lot (cocked at an angle) so instead of a private wooded view we are facing two garages. We gave him a verbal OK to do this over the phone not knowing exactly where the new nighbors homes would be placed but was assured it would still be private. Do you think we would win if this ever got to court if we have to back out of the contract or to collect our earnest money refund?
During construction he has had sub-contractors do work on the house without our seeing their quotes or signing off on the price. Our contract states that "the purchaser will be consulted before major decisions are made on appliances, fixtures, cabinets, windows, doors, trim, stone siding and decore, etc." They had a landscaper designer draw up a plan (our expense) and then never showed us the plan before having the work compleated. They also had our furnace system started before we gave the OK to install a 4 zone system and then after the fact saw the bill which was $2.5K over our allowance and was told it would cost $1K to rip out the work they had done.
Because the house is costing $56K more than we wanted to spend and the fact he has breached our contract by not showing us quotes before work being started we feel that we should be able to cancel this contract without penalty and get a full refund on our $40K earnest money. We also are unhappy on how the house was placed on the lot (cocked at an angle) so instead of a private wooded view we are facing two garages. We gave him a verbal OK to do this over the phone not knowing exactly where the new nighbors homes would be placed but was assured it would still be private. Do you think we would win if this ever got to court if we have to back out of the contract or to collect our earnest money refund?