Freedom Homes

Freedom Homes & Dan Hall were recommended to us in April, 2012 by husband's work contact whose house was built by Hall. We toured his house & were very impressed with its construction & his positive comments about Hall. We contacted Hall & met with him several times over the next few months regarding our new home construction. We also verified his license status & checked for any complaints or unresolved issues against him -- there were none. Hall is a skilled draftsman & was able to provide line drawings of all aspects of the building construction based on our requests. We submitted a house exterior model for him to use & our own interior floorplan which we fine tuned according to costs, site, & building code requirements. After some negotiation, we signed a contract with Hall at the end of July, 2012 with work to begin the next month. Hall told us more than once that he could build this "small house" in approx 4-5 months -- with good weather, should be done by end of year, first of next. Some preliminary work -- 1 or 2 days worth -- was done in August as promised but nothing more until mid Sept. Hall blamed this delay on obtaining the county building permit -- in truth, the county provided the permit within 2 weeks of his submission, no delay on their part. From this point on, work progressed in fits & starts -- some weeks lots of progress, some weeks not so much. To his credit, Hall was there on site probably more than 80% of the time. His foreman, Bill, was there most every day as his second in command & general worker bee. Hall rec'd & returned phone calls fairly promptly during the entire project but was not always very accurate in providing time schedules for subs or materials. This factor became rather frustrating to us as time went on & progress on some components was delayed again & again for no apparent reason. We learned to take whatever Hall told us with a "grain of salt". We also learned to interrupt Hall during conversations as he tends to monopolize any discussion -- he's a big talker & is very good at redirecting or misdirecting his customer to fit his own needs at the time. Insofar as our working relationship, Hall seemed to have a fair amount of respect for my husband who is a commercial construction veteran, but little for me outside of necessary civilities. My last name is different from my husband's, but Hall had a real problem with my first name of "Virginia". He kept identifying me as "Jenny" on our contract, building permit applications & other documents despite our very direct attempts to correct & educate him. We thought we had this worked out at one point when he made a half hearted apology but then he said to me "oh, I get it, this is personal!" as if I was being overly sensitive on the subject. From there on, it was apparent that this was his way of being the "man in charge". Overall, I found him to be dismissive & patronizing towards me many times, & downright rude at others. By this time, we were too committed in this project to consider another builder so I put up with his behavior, but would advise others not to. Other areas of concern, Hall did not provide a portable toilet for his workers -- they apparently used the woods around our house site...ICK!!. He also did not provide a dumpster for all the construction debris & worker trash that accumulated during the project. He used his own small trailer for hauling fairly frequently at first, but not so much as the months went by. Only after a mountain of trash had built up & our repeated requests to remove it had occurred did he bring in dumpster & clean up the site. Hall was very sporadic about clean up or site protection in general -- we wound up doing a lot of the interior & exterior clean up ourselves & provided contractor quality drop cloths, floor covering protection, covers for special order items & appliances such as kitchen countertop & stovetop, front entry door, etc. The once beautiful m-bath soaking tub was permanently scratched & defaced by inadequate protection thanks to Mr. Hall. He was asked to correct this condition or replace; he responded by doing some clean up work himself & told us he'd provide a "factory rep" to come out & correct the rest -- this has not occurred despite our repeated requests. By the end of 2012 it was obvious the house would not be ready for at least another month. We discussed this w/Hall who agreed that probably the end of Jan was more likely. Keep in mind we'd been told 4-5 months to build, there'd been no weather delays or other unforseen events to slow things down, just Hall's management of things. End of Jan comes & goes, still not done. Hall says "end of Feb" due to problems with electrical contractor & wiring of house. Feb comes & goes; electrical problems continue & the contractor, Mark Haley of Caitlyn Construction, seems to be picking & choosing when to come out & fix the problems. Hall seems to have no recourse with this guy & continues to stand by & wait while everything else comes to a halt including our move-in. First week of March, we discuss situation w/Hall & advise him we plan to move in 3/20 -- will the house be ready? Hall assures us that it will be -- just need to get this electrical problem corrected & final inspections done, etc. go ahead with moving plans. We contact moving company & start packing in preparation for move. Weekend before move date, electrical contractor Mark Haley comes out to make last? correction. County inspector passes house for occupancy 2 days later, but only because my husband completed remaining work; Hall did not show up day of inspection nor did he respond to phone calls until late that day. County inspector's comments advised that garage wall with exposed wiring needed to be closed up -- Hall said he'd be out next day, 3/19 to do that & some other odds & ends. I advised him that would be his last work day on our project period....he should take all his tools & construction debris, etc because we were done. When we came to the house the next day, we discovered that Hall had been there -- the garage wall had been closed up & he'd packed up all his stuff, but he'd left the remaining construction trash. Welcome to our new home! We didn't hear from Hall that day or for the next few days but we soon would. Long story short, turns out we weren't able to move in 3/20 because with all the uncertainty of passing inspection, I'd told the movers that date was tenative so when we learned we could move in, the movers had already booked up for that day. Instead, we moved on 4/2; a perfect day as it turned out. The week after move-in, Dan Hall came to our house to demand payment for the balance due him -- we weren't at home at the time--he left a note at the front door. This was disturbing to us since Hall had been paid in accordance with his own draw schedule on or before amounts were due. Never, ever any dispute about money. Also, according to our building contract we were allowed at least 20 days to pay him before being considered late. Needless to say, we did not favor him with a reply right away as we were still in the process of settling in to our brand new home. Hall was eventually paid -- within 2 weeks -- in full minus a small amount for not showing up the day of final inspection & not clearing out all the construction debris. We've contacted him by phone on 2 occasions since then to request warranty assistance with 2 home items; both times Hall assured us he'd take care of the problems right away but nothing was ever done. Luckily, other contractors who worked on our house have volunteered to correct the problems under manufacturer warranty eliminating any need to go back to Dan Hall. Shame on him for not honoring his own pledge to correct defects or problems for the 1st year of ownership. So, long story short & as I said to Mr. Hall, he delivered the house we wanted at a price we could afford. Was he the best person to work with? No, he definitely has quite an ego & his own way of going about things regardless of his client's wishes. On the other hand, Hall is very skilled, knowledgable, & capable of creating a lovely home -- as long as you go along with his program & protect your investment as much as possible (which we did), you'll be ok.