I purchased a town home in UT in March of 2005. The home was brand new and came with a one year builder warranty. Shortly after moving in to the home we found several problems with the home, including leaking in the basement after heavy rainstorms and occasionally after the sprinklers had run.
I need to pull out the original warranty document and reread it, but I believe that the builder (not the developer) was the original warranter of the construction. However, the builder has gone bankrupt since that point in time, and the developer has been servicing warranty claims. We worked through several warranty issues with the developer, and they were willing to take care of most of the issues, but they were VERY slow, often taking 7-10 days to respond to emails and phone calls. However, we were willing to live with their slowness since the work was getting done.
Last summer (2006) although we were already outside the warranty period, the developer arranged to have a handy man service come and finish most of the outstanding warranty items. All of the repairs had been problems before the warranty had expired, and we had notified them in writing of the problems before the warranty expired. At this point in time most of the problems have been repaired to my satisfaction, except for the biggest problem, the basement leak.
The developer has had a builder and an agent from the handy man service examine the problem. But neither made an attempt to fix the problem (due the magnitude of the problem and/or their own inexperience with similar problems), and both have stopped returning my phone calls. The last email that the developer sent to me was in Nov of last year, and he agreed that the basement still needed to be repaired and seemed willing to pay for the repair. However, shortly thereafter the ground froze for the winter, and I got busy with work and family and forgot about the problem until this fall when the basement started leaking again (we had a very dry spring/summer this year with hardly any rain to speak of).
I sent an email to the developer the first of Sept. asking for resolution on this issue, but the company has been unresponsive to repeated emails and phone calls. I have sent a total of four emails detailing the problem to various agents of the developer including the owner, and I have yet to receive a response. Today I am sending a letter via certified mail asking for resolution on this matter.
I have carried out most of my communication with the developer via email, and I have printed copies of all of my communications via email including several emails from the developer in which they stated that they would fix the problem.
So all of that is background. Here are my questions:
1. Has it been too long since the warranty elapsed to seek a legal remedy to this solution. Will my emails hold up in court as evidence that they didn't fix the problem even though they knew about it before the warranty expired, or can the developer just say "Sorry its too late. Your warranty is expired and we're not fixing it." Have I lost my right to legal recourse by not being diligent in getting the problem resolved (i.e. waiting almost an entire year (and almost 18 months after the warranty expired) after my last communication to bring the issue up again).
2. I know that this might be best suited for small claims court, but I worry that if extensive foundation work needs to be done that I may end up in excess of the $7500 small claims maximum for my state. If I do decide to go the small claims route can I seek multiple judgments for the same problem. Say a first judgment for exploratory work to excavate the foundation, and then a second judgment once I have ascertained the extent of the damage to actually fix the problem.
3. There are several other units in the same complex that have similar problems and everyone has expressed frustration over the unwillingness of the developer to repair warranty issues in a timely manner. Several people have had to threaten legal action before their work was completed. Would I be better off trying to organize the other unit owners into bringing a single lawsuit with multiple plaintiffs against the developer (either mass action or class action?) or would I better off filing my own lawsuit.
I need to pull out the original warranty document and reread it, but I believe that the builder (not the developer) was the original warranter of the construction. However, the builder has gone bankrupt since that point in time, and the developer has been servicing warranty claims. We worked through several warranty issues with the developer, and they were willing to take care of most of the issues, but they were VERY slow, often taking 7-10 days to respond to emails and phone calls. However, we were willing to live with their slowness since the work was getting done.
Last summer (2006) although we were already outside the warranty period, the developer arranged to have a handy man service come and finish most of the outstanding warranty items. All of the repairs had been problems before the warranty had expired, and we had notified them in writing of the problems before the warranty expired. At this point in time most of the problems have been repaired to my satisfaction, except for the biggest problem, the basement leak.
The developer has had a builder and an agent from the handy man service examine the problem. But neither made an attempt to fix the problem (due the magnitude of the problem and/or their own inexperience with similar problems), and both have stopped returning my phone calls. The last email that the developer sent to me was in Nov of last year, and he agreed that the basement still needed to be repaired and seemed willing to pay for the repair. However, shortly thereafter the ground froze for the winter, and I got busy with work and family and forgot about the problem until this fall when the basement started leaking again (we had a very dry spring/summer this year with hardly any rain to speak of).
I sent an email to the developer the first of Sept. asking for resolution on this issue, but the company has been unresponsive to repeated emails and phone calls. I have sent a total of four emails detailing the problem to various agents of the developer including the owner, and I have yet to receive a response. Today I am sending a letter via certified mail asking for resolution on this matter.
I have carried out most of my communication with the developer via email, and I have printed copies of all of my communications via email including several emails from the developer in which they stated that they would fix the problem.
So all of that is background. Here are my questions:
1. Has it been too long since the warranty elapsed to seek a legal remedy to this solution. Will my emails hold up in court as evidence that they didn't fix the problem even though they knew about it before the warranty expired, or can the developer just say "Sorry its too late. Your warranty is expired and we're not fixing it." Have I lost my right to legal recourse by not being diligent in getting the problem resolved (i.e. waiting almost an entire year (and almost 18 months after the warranty expired) after my last communication to bring the issue up again).
2. I know that this might be best suited for small claims court, but I worry that if extensive foundation work needs to be done that I may end up in excess of the $7500 small claims maximum for my state. If I do decide to go the small claims route can I seek multiple judgments for the same problem. Say a first judgment for exploratory work to excavate the foundation, and then a second judgment once I have ascertained the extent of the damage to actually fix the problem.
3. There are several other units in the same complex that have similar problems and everyone has expressed frustration over the unwillingness of the developer to repair warranty issues in a timely manner. Several people have had to threaten legal action before their work was completed. Would I be better off trying to organize the other unit owners into bringing a single lawsuit with multiple plaintiffs against the developer (either mass action or class action?) or would I better off filing my own lawsuit.
