Complaint Review: Garabedian properties custom home builder - Keller Texas

 Also the judgment was enforced and filed in several counties. Not sure what he’s talking about it being vacated or thrown out. I know he took months to pay it and there was a technicality bc the temporary judge granted the award and turned it into a judgement before the other parties lawsuit had been settled. It was proper but should have been triple! lol. If it was so improper and thrown out then why did we get a check for 420k!

 This builder writes that it’s the first time in 30 years that someone hasn’t allowed him to fix a problem. Let me clarify. The issues started in 2014 in November. We found a ton of mold that was likely dangerous and he said that his crew was shut down for the holidays and wouldn’t come remove the hazard until after the holidays. 2 months later!

Since it was near our children’s playroom my poor husband ripped it all out. Hindsight we should have hired a company and sent him the bill. Now my husband has brain cancer and who knows if the high load of mold contributed but it certainly wasn’t good for him. We Won on mold damages.

This builder also says he offered to fix the other issues so let me give you the full story since he likes to post this line on all reviews.

1. The builder offered to caulk around windows from about the time we sued in 2015 After a year of back and forth. If this builder understood that caulk is not waterproofing then he would also understand that caulk is not a repair. The real issue was he didn’t have a receipt for flashing he never bought, hence we didn’t have it around 50 windows. With 30 years behind his belt I’m surprised he didn’t notice? Lol

2. His only offer during litagation, was to drill thousands of holes in the exterior to support the missing brick ties that were deemed an imminent life safety hazard and this fix his own expert wouldn’t do despite testifying he would! Lol! Can’t make this up. Our engineer disputed the repair and not a single builder in 100 mile radius would take on such a risky repair. We had to remove every brick and stone.

3. During litigation (hence after we sued) he offered to remove the stone around all 50 windows only then flash then patch. Can you imagine doing this on an entire house? Hence why no builder would take on the repair. It all had to come down.

Garabedian might want to re-enlist in some .education building courses. I suggest call Matt resinger in Austin. He would laugh at the "repair” this "builder” offered that our engineers disagreed with vehemently, that his own expert said he would do then refused later, and no builder in 100 mile would touch with a 100 foot pome (only 100 mile radius bc I couldn’t contact every builder in America).

I feel sorry for others that may be in our position bc dealing with this builder has been a horrible nightmare and I do believe God put us in this situation to help others that may be going through this.

Becky & Nick we are so very sorry for the issues you had with your home. We do not agree the statement above is accurate. We did work politely, professionally and consistently to attend to all of your concerns from day one and offered repairs as the issues were clearly identified.

For some reason, your family choose to NOT allow us to proceed with those repairs. This matter could have been attended to completely quite awhile ago. However for reasons unknown to us, you choose a path that elongated the process.

This is the first time in almost 30 years of home building we have had an owner refuse to let us fix the items needing attention.

Your decision to refuse to allow us to repair the items put it out of our hands. Now that this process is complete and the original repairs we offered to do at no cost to your family were APPROVED by the independent third party, we can all move forward.  We have fully met all our obligations in the agreed upon remedy.

As it relates to the judgement, you are aware that it was voided and vacated (thrown out) for being improper.  We wish your family well.

$420,000 dollar judgement on this builder for the defective house he built us which is currently as of 11/19/17 unpaid.  The judgement is public record now and searchable. 

Multiple code violations on our dream home,  50 windows were never flashed or installed according to install instructions, no sealant behind any window and tyvek done completely wrong which actually directed water inside.  Brown water rained into dining room before we did destructive testing because the water has hit the OSB behind the sheathing. Masonry deemed imminent life safety hazard due to lack of brick ties in upper stories.  Fireplace also doesn't have enough brick ties to code.  Multiple building envelope defects such as bridging mortar and missing weep holes so wall cavity cannot drain properly. All that plus two shower pan leaks, in addition to backer board that has seams and gaps allowing water to pour into the wall cavity for years and grow mold.  Mold, drainage issues, foundation differential movement and the builder did not obtain a site specific soil test, despite contracting for one in our PSA and telling us he was doing one. Mike Garabedian was very challenging to reach and at times not responsive (I have texts to back this) when this first got going in 2014/15 and put us off for months despite having tons of mold from the pan leaks.  Our engineering reports state that to properly repair the house we need to remove all masonry on 100% of the house, remove wet insulation and wet osb and WRB that was damaged as well as replace Windows and then put it all back together again. And that is just the outside, the inside is a whole other issue.  Getting to this point has been a long road - 3 years now - and the builder blamed homeowner maintenance in writing (I have all the letters) for the vast majority of our time dealing with him starting in 2014.  He even instructed the window company Builders First Source not to schedule any more appoinments with us to repair the leaking windows.  Even in arbitration he said there was only a problem with 1 window when we have 50.  Unbelievable but true.  It wasn't until we took the front masonry off in September of 2016 and exposed the defective work, that we discovered the truth.  We had to go through arbitration because the builder never offered mold remediation, and his fix for the repair was to drill upwards of 50+ helix ties /anchor bolts in the entire exterior of the house which our engineers deemed unacceptable for a variety of reasons, like creating 50+ more water penetrations in an already defective building envelope and the probability of locating a stud that many times could damage our framing structurally.  Not to mention the stigma of a house with nuts and bolts in the exterior that would require ongoing maintenance to avoid water penetration... in addition to the visible patches everywhere!  The builder's expert - who had the lowest bid - won vs ours so when we contacted his expert to repair the house like he told the arbiter he would, he was suddenly too busy and has ignored my emails and just this week I received a cease and desist notice from the builders attorney to stop contacting the builders expert... I couldn't get so much as a recommendation from the builders expert on who could do the repair.  Now we can't find anyone to do the work or the type of repair (no one I've contacted has ever done it on an entire upper story of 5K square but mainly small areas)...Not to mention finding someone for that low price!  Now even if he does pay his judgement we can't even fix the house properly without being out hundreds of thousands.  This has been so incredibly difficult on my family and I wish we had never met him or trusted him to build our house - that we'll likely lose b/c we can't afford to repair all of these issues.  Truly heartbreaking and it's not even over yet. Our children have paid the ultimate price for this builders actions. Having to battle my husband's brain cancer with the added stress of a home we haven't been able to live in for over a year bc of aspergillis and fear of complications while my husband is undergoing chemo and is immunocompromised has been difficult. Two Christmas' we will not be in our home and cannot sell easily either bc of the nature of the defects.  We pray every night that the builder does the right thing for our family ..who welcomed us to his family in the very beginning and who we trusted would build us a safe forever home that we could live in.  In fact, my dad reached out to Certified Master Builder not knowing Garabedian is the president of that group - and Garabedian had his attorneys communicate that the pictures of our house my dad sent from destructive testing were "actionable", so putting something untrue in writing would not be a risk i'm ever willing to take.  

The truth is the truth.