David Havel, now the President of New Vision Development Partners used to be the President of Sanctuary Homes. We purchased and had built a house by David and his then company in 2008. During the whole negotiation process, the build process and the after sales process, we dealt with David Havel. Long story short we were very happy with our house even though there were a few minor issues that came up after we 1st moved in. We thought this was normal and the issues were taken care of promptly.
A couple of years after we moved in we noticed a couple of pieces of siding coming loose and one piece actually fell off. We called a friend who is in construction to take a look at the issue. He stated that the siding was not installed correctly and that we should contact the builder. So we called David who apparently was now the President of New Vision Development Partners and asked him to come by and take a look at the issue. He sent one of his contractors over who ended up being the Construction Manager of our house. He stated that the siding was installed correctly and that he would have someone come out and fix the siding for us. We were grateful that it was being fixed and at this time had no reason not to trust David and his team. Someone did come by to fix and replace the siding, but never came back to paint it.
My Complaint;
We recently went under contract to sell the house and was surprised and very disappointed by the buyer's inspector's results of our house. There were numerous issues, some minor, some a bit more than minor, but the siding problem was not minor. The short story is that the inspector stated that the siding had numerous problems to include some of it missing, broken, cracked, etc. and also stated this was due to improper installation. We immediately called a Siding professional to come out and give us a bid and an opinion as to what was wrong. The bid to replace and fix and paint was over $15,000 and the bid to replace all the siding and paint was over $37,000. The worse part of the information he gave me was that it was obvious to him that it was faulty installation.
I immediately called Mr. David Havel and explained the situation. He asked me to send him all the information I had and he would possibly drive by the house that afternoon and take a look at the information and get back to me. The information I sent him was the whole inspection report, several pictures of the siding, the siding professionals report and the bid from the siding professional. David didn't call me back so I texted him the next day.
He stated that the house was out of warranty and that I needed to contact my insurance company. I replied back that this was clearly an install issue and that I would like for him to resolve the issue. David replied back and I quote "SO I CAN BRING MY TOYOTA TO THE SHOP WITH 200000 MILES AND A TRANSMISSION THAT NEEDS REPAIR AND YOU WILL FIX IT?" I replied back that this wasn't a car it was a 7 year old house and how long should siding last? I asked him if his current customers are being told that their siding will only last 7 years.
Mr. David Havel has refused my requests to take care of this issue, and I believe it is a major issue. When someone buys a brand new house, should they assume or even think that their siding would only last 7 years. If 3 professionals state that it was bad installation, is it probably a bad installation? read more