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 to know why Ron didn't inform us of the covenants. I called him a week ago and asked him that exact question. He told me that we had seen the coventants and that there was a copy of them in our file at his office. We DID NOT see the covenants prior to purchasing the house and just because there may be a copy of the covenants in our file now, doesn't mean we ever saw them. At any point, he can put whatever he wants in our file but there is no proof that we saw every document he says is in our file. We also just saw him in the grocery store the other day and his excuse this time was that he had showed them to us and we forgot we had seen them. That sure doesn't make sense because had we seen them, we would never have purchased the house to begin with! To sum everything up, here are the ways in which Ron Lords mistreated and took advantage of us: He did not inform us there were covenants. He did not provide us with the preliminary title documents, therefore, not allowing us appropriate access to the contingency listed in the Buy/Sell agreement. He took advantage of the fact that we were first time home buyers and hadn't ever been through the home buying process. He lied to us by saying we had seen the covenants, that they were in our file and that we had just forgotten we'd seen them. As a result of these things, we are going to sell our home (and ultimately lose the amazing interest rate that we will never have access to again) because we will not be able to live the life we want on this property.