Outside of a lack of basic communication and customer service they are not an ethical company. We spent a total of thirteen (13) months dealing with them. We had 3 different contact/community representatives and 2 different superintendents throughout this process.
July of 2020, we reached out to inquire on a lot/pricing - we receive a base price. We had some other features we wanted pricing on before committing to anything. Over the course of the next TWO months we made multiple contact attempts to get the additional pricing without any traction. We ultimately had to reach out to the owners of the company due to the complete lack of response/communication. No response from the owners but we get a response from the president of the company. We get pricing on the additional items in September of 2020. Now the base price has increased by $7,500.00. It was suggested by the builder to lock in our price with a FIXED PRICE CONTRACT.
We signed a FIXED PRICE CONTRACT in October. We were told roads would be done by end of December or January. From November to January there was no communication from Authentic to us on how they were coming along. All communication was initiated by us. January passes and roads are still not complete. We continue to follow up with Authentic every 30 days or so.
Roads are completed in April 2021 and we follow up again to check on next steps. We're told that our "contact person" is no longer with the company. No one called to update us on this or let us know. At this point, we have a face to face meeting with the president to go over final plans. In the meeting I am told that they will need to REPRICE EVERYTHING and get back to us with what it will cost to build the home. I remind the president of our SIGNED, FIXED PRICE CONTRACT and the response I get from him is "I don't build homes at a loss". After everything we had been through with them this is his response? Keep in mind it's been six months since the contract was signed and not a single mention/communication from Authentic to notify us pricing was going up. Because they suggested to sign the contract and lock in the price, we never thought this would be an issue.
Thinking it may only be a couple of thousand dollars and understanding the crazy nature of material costs due to the pandemic we tell him to let us know what the new price would be. The president responds with a base price increase of over $26,000 (keep in mind there was a $7,500 increase we already agreed to)! They indicate they'd be willing to give us our earnest money back - how thoughtful - so they can go make more money on the lot and not be locked into our contract price.
At this point we're past upset but we attempt to negotiate with Authentic to which they simply don't respond. We retained an attorney to see if that would get their attention - it did of course - we get a call from Authentic after they receive a letter from our attorney offering 100 sq. ft. of concrete. Yes, you read that right 100 sq. ft. of concrete for $26,000 - laughable, I know. From there we continue to try and negotiate with them on the pricing and other features they'd be willing to include in the build of the home if we were to agree to the price increase. They ultimately stop communicating all together seemingly forcing us to spend more money and take further legal action.
We've since learned from people in the industry (not competitors/builders) that they wouldn't choose Authentic to build a home for their family because of the way they build their homes from a quality perspective. With this information, the last 13 months, and the expense of continuing down the legal route Authentic has bullied us into submission. They gave us our earnest money back and we ended the contract. They simply don't care bout doing the right thing. We never heard from the owners of the company over the 13-month period.
Please do your research, they've got a couple of lawsuits against them and those are only the people willing to take it that far. Wonder how many other people just let it go like we had to. read more
