Casa Builders & Developers

Excellent service from the worker.

This was the second new construction home I built. The first was in NJ with a national builder. While not perfect, they were prompt and proficient. This latter time was at Compass Pointe, & it was perhaps the worst experience imaginable. We were warned, but fell in love with the property and location. The whole process was a circus. We had placed an offer that was accepted on a home that was just beginning as a spec home (foundation was poured). Our offer was accepted in early April. The P&S contract wasn't actually formally signed off until early June, because both Jim & his lawyers were unorganized & incompetant. This should have been enough of a red flag prompting us to run. The entire process was a comedy of errors. 1) Right before our offer was accepted, the list price was raised. We were told that all houses were now getting a master bedroom bump out over the garage. We were shown other homes further along in the process with the bump-out. They were large usable space 11.5' wide by the length of the garage. We accepted as the extra sitting room would come in handy as an office. We periodically swung by to monitor process. We passed by after the home was framed and the roof was on. Our bump out was only 7' wide by the length of the garage. The site lead at the time admitted that it was a screw up (they didn't elevate the roof over the garage high enough), but too late to change. 2) Signature Kitchens & More is their spinoff company that you use to select the interior finishing items (cabinets, carpet, tile, etc.) More headache & disorganization. They mismeasured the kitchen, so when everything was placed it was much tighter around the island than the layout had indicated. Had any oversight to the installation process been performed, you'd think they'd notice that because of the errant measurement, the kitchen couldn't accomodate a full 12" overhang on the island, but because the sub contractors are not supervised that was not caught. We had to pay a restocking fee and order a new refrigerator just to make the area between the refrigerator and island workable. They also never conveyed the layout of our kitchen, so the framers had a wall where it wasn't supposed to be (cabinets wouldn't fit), and the electrician had place electrical on that wall already. To save them money, we agreed to let them move the dining room kitchen dividing room 1 foot forward so that they wouldn't have to pay the elctrician to re-run the elctrical & could remove the errant wall. This added a foot to the dining room & subtracted a foot from the kitchen. That was acceptible to us, but they never moved the chandelier light box, so it was off center in the room. That was not not noticed until after our furniture was delivered & it became horrifically obvious. They electrician claims it wasn't his fault, because he wasn't told the wall was moved, although he admitted he noticed that it was. He insists on charging us. The builder refuses to cover the cost, even though the lack of communication between he and his subs should be on him. 3) We had huge puddles of standing water in the basement before closing, to the point were it looked like some mold was present. The water apparently was from the subs leaving the bulkhead door open & rain getting in, but despite bringing this to the builder's attention repeatedly, it took over a month to get them to clean up the water, and that only occured because the builder's listing agent made the call to get somebody there to clean it up. 4) The builder uses his own canbinet installers. Each time we visited, there were different installers there, and they were all sloppy. We have many scrapes & gaps in the cabinets. Pieces were installed incorrectly or not at all (refrigerator side panel). It took two months for them to finish installing the kitchen cabinets. 5) Ommissions: We never received items that existed in the P&S (french doors, built-in shower bench). It took months of complaining & harrassing before and after closing to get the standard shutters installed. His spec home even had them, but ours didn't. 6) Landscaping: There is a big sinkhole around the basement bulkhead oor. The builder hydroseeded & planted shrubs (only half of the number promised in the P&S) 2 months before closing. He never watered or maintained any of it. The yard is all dirt or weed. The shrubs are mostly dead. At closing the weeds were over knee high. All sorts of debris was left (cigarette butts and lighers, beer & soda cans, nails, wood, etc.). Despite promising to send someone to clean up the debris, fill the sink hole, reseed the lawn & plant new shrubs, all of it still exisis in the same sad state. 7) Do not leave yourself without a contigency: The builder kept claiming they were flying and they expected to be finished ahead of schedule. Closing was scheduled for 6/30 in May they were predicting finisheing 2 weeks early. I was relocated by my employer, so I had my possessions in their ridiculously expensive storage facility, and I was subletting an apartment. I had to give two months notice to break the lease, and the kept telling me to put my notice in. Admittedly, their framers were great & they did appear to be flying. All of a sudden, despite perfect weather conditions, all activity completely stopped for 7 weeks. The site lead was fired or quit (he as well as other subs complained they were old a lot of money). Luckily, I kept the temporary apartment until the end of August, but even then they barely had the house complete enough where I could move in. Others were worse off. They had to take possession with their homes in far worse shape, because it was delayed so much & they had to get out of their previous residence. Another prospective buyer has put their deposit down on a home, and was promised the home would be completed, and instead of working on that home, they're putting their resources into spec homes. He's already had that buyer's deposit money for months, and they're not yet framed despite homes without buyers getting sided, plumbed and wired. 8) Punch List: Don't hold your breath on this getting completed ever. Once they have your money, it's nearly impossible to track them down. You'd have every right to sue & win, but the cost and time of fighting him may or may not be worth it depending on your situation. Of course they probably count on that. That is my dilemma surrounding the landscaping & misc. items I have left. 9) The Compass Pointe location is great, the lots are big & flat (uncommon for this area), but be prepared for plenty of headaches, sloppiness, delays & broken promises. There is no attention to quality details or follow through. They do put a lot of nice amenities in standard, but putting a lipstick on a pig still makes it a pig.

refused to do punch list , will not honor the absolute illegal things like breaking window and not replace, skip stone and vapor barrier in cellar slab to the cost to me on 4/4/, 2013, in the amount of 7000.00 dollars to stop water leaks in cellar, which were on the actual blueprint. the Venincasa’s are THEIVES I WELCOME ANY BODY INTERESTED in viewing or hearing more about my horrible experience with this contractor you can call me at 508 328 9269 JIM

They did poor very work, I was very disappointed with them.