Carriage Custom Homes

We are greatly displeased with the treatment we received from Marty Pinna of Carriage Custom Homes, once the sale was made. Our displeasure comes from His unwillingness or inability to carry out his responsibilities to us as a Heckaman Homes Builder Representative, as outlined by Heckaman Homes and as Our general contractors responsibilities as presented to us by Marty himself .As we began, Marty presented us with a proposal for purchase that included a list of his sub-contractors to do the additional work after the house was set. for almost two months we tried repeatedly to get from Marty a description of the work each sub would actually be doing, so we knew that all we had discussed would be done. eventually he furnished some details, but they were not specific and he continued to resist our efforts. Then we discovered that most of his subs would be "moon-lighting" working on our house evenings and weekends, when not working at their regular jobs, these issues led us to secure other subs who we knew would do what we wanted and would work solely on our home until they were done. Marty had consistently told us that he didn't care if the subs were his or not, he would be the general contractor and had registered as general contractor at the building department. Marty then left us hanging as he refused to continue to be general contractor although he had previously told us( and our mortgage company) that he would be general contractor, as a benefit of having ordered a home through him, regardless of who the subs were. He had to remain contractor of record in order to get permits, but refused to take any active roll of supervision or coordination of any construction, forcing me to do it all myself..Mind you, we paid as part of the cost of the house for him to be the general. Reviewing the paperwork he filed shows about a 50% mark-up in his pricing. We should have canceled our order at that time, as Marty continued to demonstrate he is unreliable and cannot be depended upon to do what he says. At that time we could have still gotten a house from an other source, met our deadlines and eliminated a whole lot of problems and work for ourselves. As a further example, Marty;s failure to provide information to the building department in a timely manner resulted in significant delays getting started. Only when I provided hand drawn plans we did ourselves did we get necessary permits, after hearing from the building department that Marty had been told weeks earlier that additional plans were necessary, but had not responded. About this time we began hearing of others who had ordered a Heckaman Home through Carriage Custom Homes, having had similar problems and began wondering if we had made a big mistake. If Heckaman Homes has confidence in this guy, then how high could Heckamans own standards be? Marty's incompetence continued to cause additional problems for us. the biggest and most pressing were footings in the wrong places and footings that were missing. It is clearly stated by Heckaman Homes that that among other things, it is the builder/dealer responsibility to ensure footings and support columns are installed as specified in the house plan. I would expect at the very least making sure the foundation to one of Heckaman's homes is correctly done would be considered critical to the success of the structure by both Heckaman and Carriage. Apparently not as Marty did insure anything was done correctly and to our knowledge never visited the job site. According to Marty he noticed the footings problem the day of the house set, but did not disclose it to anyone. We learned of the problem several days later when the finishing crew brought it to my attention. Prior to the house set we had not seen a plan for the basement and the footings and support placements. In less than one year from house set we have areas of floor that squeak and/or jiggle. there are other problems. Bathroom appointments are the wrong color. Two bedrooms have wrong color carpet. Kitchen cabinets fall way short of we were led to believe that we were paying extra for. They seem haphazardly thought out and the corner units do not have rotating shelves as they were supposed to, therefore lots of wasted and hard to reach space. some of the drawers will not open with drawer pulls installed. There are other examples as well that account for Marty's loss of credibility. He told us that cracked drywall would be repair by that section being completely removed and replaced. the finishing crew did not remove and replace any drywall. They just filled in the cracks. they said that's all they do and don't know why Marty would have said otherwise. We don't know why either. To be frank we don't know if what Marty says is truthful or factual at all. In conclusion Marty's ethics obviously are questionable as he chose not to inform us of an unsound problem with the foundation that may well cause serious problems in the future. Again - he disclosed knowing of the footings problem only when forced to do so when I confronted him after I learned of the problem from Heckaman's finish crew. .Marty is a Heckaman Homes dealer who not only can't follow up with getting necessary permits, also will deliberately withhold knowledge of critical structural flaws. We wonder what else we don't know about. We wish we could say that we have confidence in our decision to purchase a Heckaman Home through Carriage Custom Homes, but based upon our experience so far we cannot. We complained to Heckaman about our treatment from Marty and a representative came to see us. Beyond placating us, very little was offered as a help to our issues. At the one year adjustment visit by Heckaman's finisher, nothing was done about the floors and after further contact about he floors, we were told nothing would be done for us. except to suggest that we build a support wall down the length of the basement. We decided to live with the wrong colors and even the kitchen cabinets because we needed to get moved in and didn't want to have to deal with additional delays, however the cabinets and the squeaky and jiggly floors are a constant daily reminder of our regret of our decision. don't know if we would ever recommend a Heckaman home to any one, but we certainly will not ever recommend Carriage Custom Homes to anyone!