Fault Lines
in Home
Warranties
Pulte Homes
“The ceilings
keep cracking!”
Ron Levine had just
moved into his new dream
home in Ashburn, Virginia,
in 2008 when a two-foot-long crack appeared in the
ceiling of his guest bedroom. He contacted the
builder, Pulte Homes,
which sent a worker to
patch the drywall.
“The crack returned a
few months later,” Levine
wrote to me. “This time it
was much worse.”
The builder again made
repairs. Still, the crack
came back, along with
new ones. At a community
meeting last fall, Levine
learned that at least two
dozen of his neighbors in
the 300-acre adult-living
development of Potomac
Green had the same prob-
lem, and had received the
same cosmetic fix, some as
many as four times.
Levine and his neigh-
bors, who typically had
paid more than $300,000
for their homes, are con-
vinced the problem goes
deeper than the drywall—
that it may involve roof
trusses—and should be
covered by Pulte’s ten-year
structural warranty rather
than its one-year warranty
on building materials; the
company disagrees. Eric
Younan, a Pulte spokes-
person, told me the com-
pany was “working with
these homeowners as a
courtesy, even though their
warranties have expired.”
I responded that owners
would undoubtedly call a
fix for a persistent problem
more than a courtesy.
Younan replied, “Our stan-
dard practice is to take care
of our homeowners.”
Yet “standard practice”
had already failed. I told
him the owners needed
Pulte’s written commit-
ment to fix the problems.
HOW TO
PROTECT Yourself
If you report a problem
within the warranty
period, the builder must
make the repair, even if
the warranty expires be-
fore the fix is completed.
to...implementing a perma-
nent solution to the crack-
ing which has developed in
certain homes.”
If you find yourself in a
similar situation, document
everything in writing, seek
supporting professional
opinions, and tell your
story loud and far. Nothing
gets a builder’s attention
faster than an obstacle to
continued sales. ;
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: ART STREIBER; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY STUART BRADFORD; ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
Have a complaint about customer service? You can write
to Ron at aarp.org/ronburley.
Warranties may
safeguard only major
systems and cosmetic
defects. Consult a lawyer
about faulty workman-
ship and code violations.
Stop investment scams cold.
Go to CreateTheGood.org/fraud.
