Eagle's Landing

Ron Lords (president of Eagle's Landing Real Estate & Eagle's Landing Legal
Services) was hired to build a house to our specifications and serve as the
general contractor (he purchased the land and obtained the constrution loan,
then sold us the finished product; this is how he does most of his home sales).
Being the general contractor, he hired other people to do the actual
building/construction of the home (many of these people are relatives of
his/his wife and they use family members of all ages to do some of the work [at
times, there were 10-17 year old kids putting shingles on our roof, putting
siding on, painting, and most likely other things that were done while we were
not present at the construction site]). Because he is also a licensed real
estate agent, he served as the dual real estate agent (represented both himself
as "the seller" and us as "the buyer"). Not related to this
situation, but worth mentioning, he is also an attorney. 
               
Things started going wrong after we had already signed the buy-sell agreement
and provided a down payment; but before we knew how much we had been misled (we
didn't realize this until it was too late, 10 days after we had already closed
on the house). Ron discovered that the particular lot that we had chosen in the
subdivision needed a special septic system, which happened to be much more
expensive that he had originally planned for; however, had he looked through
the documents that were provided to him when he purchased the land, he would
have known this and could have planned accordingly. Due to the added cost of
this the septic system, from that time forward, Ron was not very cooperative or
pleasant to work with. 
               
A copy of the covenants were also reportedly provided to Ron when he purchased
the land (as reported by the owner's of the other lots in the subdivision). Ron
decided not to inform us that there were covenants, nor provide us with a copy
of them. Prior to us choosing the land where we wanted to build, we explained
to Ron that we had 5 dogs, planned to eventually get horses and chickens and
wanted to have plenty of room between us and our neighbors. Ron explained that
he had 1 acre lots available in the subdivision he owned, but there were also
many other homes there already. This is why we ended up choosing a piece of
land (did not belong to Ron, he had to purchase it) that was just under 2 acres
and in a subdivision that didn't have any homes built in it yet. Ron told us
that most places allow for one livestock animal per acre and said this was most
likely what would be allowed on this property. Being first time home buyers and
given that he had built multiple homes before on various pieces of property, we
didn't bother to question this or ask for proof of what was allowed, we just
assumed (Yes, we know it is a MAJOR mistake to assume anything) he knew what he
was talking about. 
               
While the home was being built, we had multiple issues with the quality of work
being performed. In, this should have been expected since we were told the home
would take only 9 weeks to build. There also seemed to be a communication
problem between Ron and the actual contractors building the home. We had
requested a window be put in the garage from the very beginning; however, while
the house was being framed, we noticed there was no window and questioned the
contractor about it. He reported that Ron never told him about the window to be
put in the garage. 
Additionally, the home loan we decided to use was a VA (Veteran's
Administration) Loan designed for first time home owners which also had an
amazing interest rate (2.004% APR). Due to the extensive amount of paperwork
and hoops that we/our mortgage company had to jump through, it ended up taking
a total of about 12 weeks from start to finish for the house and all paperwork
to be completed. We closed on the house as soon as we could and were exstatic
to be home owners! Ten days after closing (1st week in August, 2012), the owner's
of the subdivision met my husband at the mailboxes at the end of the road on
his way home from work. They said that we had too many dogs for the covenants.
My husband explained  that Ron didn't tell us there were any covenants and
that we had never seen a copy of them either. We were totally blind-sided by
this and were very upset that we potentially may have to get rid of all but one
of our dogs. The owner's of the subdivision didn't pursue the issue any further
until just a few weeks ago (beginning of April 2013). Due to Ron's
unprofessional conduct and lack of correctly doing his job, we are now being
forced to abide by the covenants and must find new homes for 3 of our 4 dogs.
We are not upset with the owner's of the subdivision because it is their right
to hold whatever covenants they want. However, it is very frustrating that we
were misled and taken advantage of by Ron Lords. 
               
We did try to discuss this issue with Ron. Our first attempt was by text
message; Ron did not reply. The same text message was sent a second time; again
it was ignored. We know Ron has the abilty to send/receive texts because he had
used that form of communication just a few days prior to us trying to contact
him regarding this issue. At this time, I began contacting local attorneys
trying to figure out what our options were. What we found out was
disheartening. First of all, most attorneys refuse/aren't very willing to take
on another attorney. Secondly, we really didn't have leg to stand on because we
had signed the preliminary title documents stating that we knew/agreed to all
information related to our particular land/lot. (We didn't find out until 2
weeks ago that in the Buy/Sell agreement we had signed, there was a title
contingency. This contingency stated that once we received the preliminary
title documents, we had 10 days to accept or reject the contract.) Once again,
Ron did not provide us with the preliminary title documents so we had no way of
knowing that there were covenants (and no way of backing out of the deal).
Also, there is no way to prove that we didn't see these documents because it is
not required that you sign anything saying you saw/received a copy of them. We
didn’t see these documents until the day that we closed on the house and even then,
there was not a copy of the covenants in the closing documents. 
               
We understand that it is not the title company's responsibilty to provide us
with the coventants because they assume that the realtor has done his/her job
correctly….. this was NOT the case in our situation. Ron knowingly did not tell
us about the covenants because he knew we would not purchase the home had we
been aware of them, and therefore, inappropriately performed his job as a
licensed real estate agent. He has poor morals and will do whatever it takes to
make a buck. My husband and I were very upset about the entire situation and I
really wanted