Reporting a Builder to the Better Business Bureau or Other Agency
Poliana
| Posted in General Questions on
Hi everyone,
We ended up taking the guy who built our house, Lowell Deutschlander, to court. Although he said that after the first step of remediation we still have water coming on the slab, he will take a second step to fix the problem. The water came back last winter and he disappeared on us. My husband decided to hire a lawyer.
Also we are thinking to report him here: https://www.bbb.org/.
Do you have any recommendation where to report him? It feels fair to us that people should be able to check his records etc.
Kindly,
Poliana
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Replies
First thanks for coming back and letting us know what is happening.
Second please check with your lawyer before posting anything anywhere you risk damaging you case or inviting a counter suit. The smart move is probably to delete this post.
Third if this person represented themselves to be an architect and was not registered in good standing at the time that would be a very big deal and a criminal act. If you can prove that to be true your lawyer could use the threat of reporting him to the state board of registration to quickly force a settlement.
Walta
I checked and is not a problem. My family thought he was an architect when we bought the house as everywhere was advertised like this : "Created by local architect Lowell Deutschlander, designer of the Rock and Snow Annex and Westwind Orchard Cidery, the house at 149 Mountain Rest is a tranquil forest retreat. Well situated at the base of the Shawangunk Ridge, and only minutes from downtown New Paltz, it is equally close to all that the mountains and village have to offer. ................"
Poliana,
I'm sorry it turned out this way, and he didn't just do what was necessary without you having to litigate.
Architect, Architecture, and other derivatives are protected terms which can't be used by non-registered professionals, but often designers are called that in the media, and unless he represented himself as one I don't think you have much recourse there.
I'm not currently registered, but I'm still known locally as an architect. I'm pretty careful when clients approach me to point out that I'm not. He should have too.
Malcolm If we assume the “Architect” hired the real estate agent who write the listing it seems likely he approved a copy before it was listed.
Malcolm other than wasting her time do you see any downside to filing a complaint with the board?
If you want to spend your time write reviews on Yelp, Hozz, Homeadviser and every place else that Google returns when you search Architect.
A YouTube video showing your wet crawlspace that comes up when you Google his name would be nice.
Walta
Walta,
No downside at all, although my experience had been the self-governing bodies from Law Societies to Architectural Associations tend to be pretty toothless. Their interest will be in warning him against representing himself as an architect, not getting in the middle of any civil dispute the doesn't involve one of their members.
Thank you. We found out from the building inspector that he is not an architect. I studied Landscape Architecture, but never registered. We still have the responsibility to share it with the client.
The huge problem is that we still have water in the basement/crawlspace/ utility room and he disappeared on us.
If I remember correctly, your house was built on/into the side of hill/mountain. They created a "step" on that hill to build your house. There was a stone wall built on the upside of the hill and filled in behind not far from the part of the house where your water problem is happening. Have you considered that all the water coming down the hill is hitting this step, standing and saturating the soil rather than running down the rest of the hill? That water has to go somewhere, unfortunately it's into your crawlspace. I don't think it is an architectural problem, it's more of a poor location.
Some sort of drainage system may be necessary to reroute the water around and away from that section of house.
Tom,
The problem is of course caused by the conditions on the site. But it isn't the homeowner's responsibility to consider or initiate remediating the problem, it's on the designer and builder.
It depends what the contract says.
DC,
I'm having trouble envisaging a contract that would exempt the builder from having to fix a wet crawlspace in a newly constructed house.
A contract that says the homeowner is on the hook for unanticipated conditions.
I was talking with a builder friend the other day, and he was telling me a story of a house he built where the entire lot had 35-40 feet of fill. In order to get a stable foundation he had to send helical piles down over 40 feet. "And boy was the client mad when he got the bill for that!" I was surprised, but he had a clause that the client had to pay for unexpected conditions, and he charged the client for it.
We don't know both sides of the story here, but I could envision a scenario where the water is caused by unusual geologic conditions that qualify as an exclusion under the contract; the contractor told the client he would have to pay for remediation; the client refused; so the contractor walked away.
I realize there's a lot of hypotheticals there but we don't know all the facts.
DC, something like this would probably come down to what was "reasonable" (that's a leagally defined term in this particular case) for the builder to know ahead of time, unless the contract specifically exempted this. You don't need to put in the contract "builder will build to code", for example, because it's reasonable to expect that the builder will. Something like water runoff on a hill would probably also be something that you could argue would be "reasonable" for the builder to have known about and dealt with.
Acts of god are things like lightning, and aren't normally things builders have to deal with. Storm runoff isn't the same thing, and is something that builders ARE normally expected to deal with. Many municipalities are now even requiring stormwater retention to be part of all new builds.
When you get into specialized facilities, stuff gets different. To take that lightning example, I do specilized projects where I sometimes have to design systems to deal with lighting (telecom sites, like cellular or broadcast facilities with antenna towers). In these cases, I DO have to design for lightning, but my contract details out what will be done. I usually design for 100,000 amp strikes (I have a chart showing that either 96 or 94 percent of all strikes are less than that, but I can never remember if it's "96" or "94"), and I can show calculations for all the down conductors and protectors and how they'll respond. My final design will have information, backed up by data and calculations, showing that the system will see maximum voltage differentials of usually less than 1000 volts, for strikes up to 100,000 amps, and that the site can be expected to operated reliably when hit by 94 (or 96 :-) percent of all lightning strikes.
Contracts with less specific detail are more open to argument, so you want to use that "reasonable" term which is usually defined as "what would a group of similarly competent professionsals in the field believe another professional should have thought of and designed for". If that group of professionals thinks stormwater runoff should have been dealt with, then it's "reasonable" that your builder should have too.
Bill
DC,
Sure, during construction all sorts of unanticipated site conditions might need remediating which the owner would have to pay extra for. But that's during construction, not when buying a completed new house. All that contractual stuff is water under the bridge then.
True. Decades ago my parents built a home on the edge of a bluff. The house was specifically designed for a specific spot on the bluff. Excavation revealed a granite slab which caused some problems with seepage. My parents spent a lot of money trying to remediate it. They weren't unhappy with the builder though because they accepted the fact that they insisted that the house built on that spot.
John Clark, right. It should have been obvious from the start that there may be a problem. Percolation tests should have been done beforehand. But if it was a dry season, the tests would have worked out okay. You can't predict precipitation over a lifetime. Even houses with no water problems can often get water in their basements in unexpected spring thaws or heavy rains.
Her problem seems minimal. A little seeping. If it were 2-3 inches in the crawlspace, that would be a concern.
Tom is on to something, explain the building site. If you are on a slope there is a fix, you need to intercept the surface and groundwater, route it around and away from the building. This may not be absolute depending on the soil, the leak may be an artesian type flow under the building.
I don't think they're here looking for a fix as much as an outlet to slam someone and give them bad google search results.
Andy,
That may be true at this stage, but looking though the previous threads Poliana posted looking for advice here, she took all reasonable steps to find a solution and allow her builder to remediate the situation before calling him out as she is doing now.
If you have read her posts, she clearly states that there is standing and puddling water on the lot. That tells me the ground is saturated and any drainage installed is submerged under water, and depending on where its outlet is, it too is probably under water.....so no flow. Not sure if any amount of drainage work would even help since the lot acts like a pool, unless it is piped to a spot somewhere down hill.
Tom,
Again, you may well right, but she didn't design or build the house on that site, so how is it incumbent on her to remediate problems that stemmed from who did and sold it to her?
Drainage 101 is to pipe your runoff to somewhere that can handle it. That means downhill, and open. If a stormwater retention pond or tank was needed, it would be sized for the expected storm flow. This would typically all be up to the builder who developed the site. With larger developments, the builder typically builds out an entire storm drain system.
My guess is the builder in this case didn't plan for any of this, or installed a drainage system incorrectly, and now doesn't want to take the financial hit to fix it. Excavation work is expensive.
Bill
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I agree with Malcolm. If one read the different threads about this from the beginning there were plenty of chances for Mr. Deutschlander to address the problem and correct it. It's become obvious over time that his lack of understanding about how to adjust water and moisture management methods to a site that is at the bottom of a hill was what caused the problem. It also seems like he has refused to educate himself. It should be the builder's responsibility to know how to handle that situation. If I was living in that region of the country I would consider that GBA has provided a valuable service to people in the market for a builder there.
Everyone makes mistakes. It's the lack of owning up to it and making good on it that deserves the public attention. The owner gave him the benefit of the doubt for a very long time.
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I find it hard to put much blame on a buyer getting a spec home listed on the MLS but I am paranoid and only buy high ground.
Walta
It is possible to build in wet areas and be OK though. My house is an example. I just did some plumbing work to fix a leak on my well pressure tank from an old galvanized fitting that was rotting out. I always notice that water trickles in forever from the supply pipe coming from the pump in the well casing. It took me a few hours to do the work, and that pipe trickled the entire time. I finally realized what must be happening: the pipe is SIPHONING water in from my well. That would mean the water level in the well is somewhat higher than the basement floor...
While I have a sump pump, and it runs periodically all year long, I don't have water in the basement so things are sealed and drained correctly, despite having a high water table. I'm actually up on a hill here, and my well is 140 feet deep, but we're in an area with a LOT of springs -- I have multiple springs just on my own property that feed several ponds and streams -- so there is some interesting hydrology going on under me.
My general view is that you can build anywhere and be OK IF you design and engineer things correctly. The problem is that many people either don't do things correctly, or they cheap out on purpose. I agree with you that this shouldn't be an issue for the buyer though, the builder should be the one figuring out how to build things correctly.
Bill
Bill,
I agree. The house I just finished construction drawing for has a high water table. It's getting a curtain drain for protection from the slope above, and perforated pipe in rock @ 8 ft oc under the slab, connected to the perimeter drains. I'm more worried about their back yard than the house.
I used to have some areas that would pool with water during heavy rains and stay wet for a long time. Shallow buried french drains solved that, and might help you too. You could also put some "storm drains" in the yard, you can get smallish plastic ones with green grates that aren't too obtrustive. Tie them into the rest of the drainage system.
Most of my yard slopes down towards a small lake, so I only have a few flat spots to worry about. I did a lot of work with my rain gutters a few years ago that made a huge improvement, so only a little was left to deal with in other ways after that.
Bill
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Thank you everyone. A few things:
- we bought the house brand new in 2018
- the builder/architect reinstall a new footing drain, after I told him that the drain was broken. Also, he waterproofed the foundation at the same time. It happened in 2019.
- the builder/architect told us that he was going to take a first step in fixing the problem and he will come back if we still have it. He never honored what he said when the water came back in 2020.
Here is the house:
https://www.steffensrealty.com/-/listing/NY-UCMLS/20181975/149-Mountain-Rest-Road-New-Paltz-NY-12561
If I recall correctly, you constructed your home into or onto the slope of a mountain or hill. To build your house on that hill, they made a "step." Not far from the area of the house where your water problem is occurring, a stone wall was built on the top of the hill and filled in behind it. Have you thought about the fact that instead of going down the rest of the hill, all the water coming down the hill is striking one step, standing, and soaking the soil? Unfortunately, the place where that water must go is your crawlspace. It's more of a location issue than an architectural one, in my opinion. See https://masakor.com/include/category_view2.php?category1=20191203164840_7578 for help.
It may be necessary to install a drainage system to divert the water away from and around it.