Anyone here ever had a house built?

[Tippiechick]

We were having a house built. (Until the walk-through...) We were going to move into the house in two days. Then, upon walking only on the outside of the house, we found 20 things that needed fixing. (Not little stuff, major things.)

We never even made it inside b/c the the builder's rep said he "forgot" the key to go inside.

Our rep called us 5 hours later and said that the builder wanted to let us out of the contract b/c there were too many items he did not want to fix. He wanted out b/c if he had to fix everything on the outside, (and most likely things we never got to see on the inside) he would have lost money on the house....

We had paid $70.00 in lighting overages. He refused to give those back. He charged us $50.00 for a door that was painted after being told there was no charge for it.
Someone from the builder's people went into the house after it was "done" and used up the equilvilant of 1/2 a month's water bill in 3 days. He refused to pay it even though we had no access to the house and was not allowed into it to use any water.

He then sold the house with a 10 year-old light that we brought with us to save on lighting costs. It was our light. It is hideously scratched up and obviously NOT new. He refused to give it back to us. In fact, he has passed it off as a new light until the people notice it.

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GET TO BUILD YOUR HOUSE. We thought we could trust this guy. He was even recommended by a few people. But, he was in a hurry and his men did shoddy work. And, he didn't want to have to fix it.

In the end, we went with another house already built... We LOVE it! And, we never, ever, want to build a house again.