TRADITIONAL HOMES OF ALBEMARLE

When I first received my contract for the house, the pages were nearly unreadable. They had made copies and reduced the size on the page down to about 60-75% view area, you needed a magnifying glass to read the print. The floor plans for the house were also so small and distorted, you can’t even see or read what they say. And when you ask for a better copy, they get somewhat of an attitude because you even asked. I don’t think it’s much to ask to have realistic size documents for your customer/buyer to be able to read. It just shows that they could care less about their customers. So I went in for my appointment at Traditional Homes of Albemarle (Builder) to pick out the colors and patterns for the interior/exterior stuff such as cabinets, tile, roof, and siding, in January 2017. They weren’t prepared and had to gather all of the stuff needed for the meeting, and couldn’t even get my name right. The examples and colors of the interior and exterior choices were extremely small in my opinion. I don’t have a problem with that, but at least have some pictures of the houses that you have already built for people to see the big picture. I suggested that they start taking pictures of the completed houses that they build in order to help with this. You would have thought I asked to rob the place at that point. With almost an offended type attitude one of the answers was, “we’ve never done it that way, and this is the way we do it.” You the customer are NOT the priority with these people in any way shape or form, and they do not like to have suggestions made on the way that they do things. They also made it a point to tell me that “They really don’t care if I buy the house or not.” I was also promised by all parties (Seller, Builder, and Realtor) that I would receive updates throughout the process on the construction and where we were at as far as completion date. I didn’t hear a peep from anyone for over two months (JAN-APR). And at about two weeks out from completion, they informed me that the house was 5 weeks behind on construction. So at that point I asked them what exactly the problem was and why we are so far behind. That question went ignored for about two weeks before I got anything resembling an answer. When I did get the answer, it was sent from the builder (Tim Carson) through the realtor to me by email. He couldn’t even address me directly on my questions about the house. And on top of that, the email was a disrespectful and condescending rant about how lucky I was to even be able to purchase this home at the actual selling price. Due to their lack of planning and foresight, they had gone $15,000.00 in the hole on the construction and excavating costs, so they had thoughts of raising the price of the home at that point. In my opinion, that was their own fault and they should be eating the 15K. Trying to make me feel guilty about their mistakes was completely unprofessional. The actual reason for the delays and added costs were never explained in that email either, so I never did get a detailed answer to my question. I was finally told through the realtor that the problem on the delay was the septic system. For whatever reason they didn’t have the slope of the property right in order for the system to drain properly. But the builder never took the time to explain this all to me, and couldn’t even meet me at that property to help me better understand the issue. The builder also stated to the realtor that he had forgotten to mention the septic system may cause some problems, this was also at the two weeks out time frame. So in my opinion, they already knew well in advance that they had improperly surveyed the property for a proper installation. And also knew that they weren’t going to meet the original completion date much sooner than two weeks out. Neither the builder nor the seller offered up any type of good will gesture for causing this inconvenience. I actually asked them if they would epoxy my garage floor, and with that I would have been content. But that’s when the builder said no, and sent the ranting email to tell me how lucky I was. Tim Carson (Seller) talked a big game during initial meetings, and slowly broke off any contact after contract signing. Can't answer emails and goes through realtor in order to contact me, then doesn't even answer the questions at hand that are asked. Decides to go on rants about how lucky you are to be getting the house at the price quoted, based off of his lack of preparation and planning for the construction. Was also asked numerous times for documents that the lender and bank needed. Mr. Carson also never once offered to meet me at the property to take the time to explain what the issue was with the 5 week delay on construction. He seems to get offended when you ask any question about the construction and what the delays are. The arrogant and disrespectful attitude presented in just about all cases with him and the seller is, “we don’t care if you like it or not, this is the way we always do it” and “consider yourself lucky that you are the one buying the house, because we can sell it to anyone.” The realtor Sharon Wood will not be recommended to anyone in the future by me. Very hands off and lacks communication in all aspects. Not a peep from her on progress for 2 months until the bank called her out on mass email. Accepts unprofessional and disrespectful responses from Tim Carson and traditional Homes. There were a few cabinets across the house that were warped and installed incorrectly. After numerous visits and explanations on the problem, it took them 6 months to complete the correction on the cabinets. But they failed to fix the worst one in the house that was in the kitchen along with actually fixing the wrong cabinets on two occasions. Once I received an answer back as to why the ball was dropped, I was once again surprised by their lacking reasoning. They said that I informed the person that did the initial inspection on the doors that I told them the wrong one. Well, not only did I show the cabinets to them, I also put sticky labels on ALL of the cabinets in the house that were deformed. So trying to deflect the incompetency was pretty unprofessional. Once we identified the mistakes they once again made by installing the wrong door, I had to wait another 4 months for them to come and fix the mistakes. Two of the main doors (Front door & Garage) were installed improperly and would not close correctly. They did come and make an attempt to fix both doors, but it was a lazy effort fix by putting a wedge under one of the doors to even out the frame. This was never explained to me and I found it by accident while cleaning my garage one day. So Traditional Homes of Albemarle sent the guy back out to look at the doors once again. Only problem was the fact that he had just had surgery and literally could barely walk. So there was no way that he could even go upstairs to inspect the door. I contacted the builder (Traditional Homes of Albemarle) about my HVAC making a strange noise when shutting down in heat mode. I was informed 2 days after they were supposed to be there that they never showed up. They were supposed to contact me about rescheduling the appt. So at this point we are right up against the one year warranty on the house expiring. So they chose to let that pass without contacting me and completely broke contact. Once again, very professional behavior. During all of this time that I was having the issues with everything, Mr. Davis the other party of Traditional Homes of Albemarle, completely went hands off in helping fix the issues. They were actually building another house directly across the street from me about 6 months after I bought mine. I saw him over there numerous times while I was home and also driving by on the way home. Not one time did he come over and check to see how things were going with the house. This information is here for you to take in when you are considering building/buying a new home. I’m sure that other experiences with these people are varied, but this was mine. This being my first home purchase, It turned out to be a pretty painful experience overall. I would not recommend going with any of these people for your home building or purchase needs. It will also be interesting to see how quick their response will be to this review, im sure it will be much quicker that their customer service.