Taking Complaints to the Next Level

I will preface this post by saying I'm not a lawyer or work in any real estate related profession so this is based on my own experience and what I learned from it. What I am however is an angry Ryan Homes homeowner that discovered I would potentially have to spend money that I would otherwise not have had to spend on repairs had Ryan Homes done what they were supposed to do and told us they would do. I was further angered because instead of them simply agreeing to the resolution I asked for to fix their mistake, I had to waste time and energy going through a drawn out process to ultimately get what I asked for from the beginning.

As I wrote in the previous two posts, we discovered late last year that despite being told by Ryan Homes that they would handle the warranty registration of our HVAC system (extending the warranty from five to ten years) it was never done. When we asked for them for an assurance that they would cover any repairs in the future we were simply told by their service manager it would be done, "on a case-by-case basis." Not willing to take their word for it and on the suggestion of our HVAC contractor I filed complaints with two Virginia agencies, the Virginia Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection and the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. We ultimately got a satisfactory resolution in doing so, but had I not known about these resources the outcome would have been much different. For reference to our particular issue see the first post, Filing a Complaint with the State, for background about the problem and the second post, State Complaint Part II: Resolution, for how it was resolved.

I've gotten the impression most people don't know there are resources out there to help when they've been wronged by companies with whom they've done business. In reading through posts on several Ryan Homes communities most folks seem to just accept that they're a big company and there's no use fighting them so they accept it and give up. Our experience says otherwise.

To that end, the following list is the best I was able to come up with of comparable state agencies based on what I dealt with in Virginia. Outside of there I can't guarantee they are the correct places to file complaints but hopefully they can be a starting place to point you in the right direction.

Delaware
Delaware Department of Justice Fraud & Consumer Protection Division
Delaware Division of Professional Regulation

Florida
Florida Attorney General Consumer Protection Division
Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation

Illinois
Illinois Consumer Protection Division
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation

Indiana
Indiana Attorney General File a Complaint

Maryland
Maryland Attorney General Consumer Protection Division
Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation Consumer Complaints

New Jersey
New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs

New York
New York Department of State, Division of Consumer Protection
New York Office of the Professions

North Carolina
North Carolina Consumer Protection Division

Ohio
Ohio Attorney General File a Consumer Complaint

Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Attorney General
Pennsylvania Department of State File a Complaint

South Carolina
South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs
South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation

Tennessee
Tennessee Attorney General
Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance

Virginia
Virginia Attorney General Office of Consumer Protection
Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation

West Virginia
West Virginia Consumer Protection

Some additional advice I can provide based on what we learned through this experience:

-Read your warranty book carefully. (I believe it's on a flash drive now but when we closed we received a binder.) Before you file a complaint, make sure it's something that Ryan Homes should be covering/doing. In our case too, their website stated that they would handle registration of our HVAC unit. While it no longer says that I was able to use the Wayback Machine website that happened to have a snapshot of the relevant page dated several days before our closing. A print out of this was used as evidence to support our complaint. (I actually found a news article referencing a court ruling supporting its use as evidence.)

-Take notes of conversations you have with anyone. Especially when a dispute arises. Note the time and date, the person you spoke with, and what was said. Follow up with an email to the person, "Per our conversation..." Once we had filed our complaint with the state agencies any time I exchanged emails with anyone in Ryan Homes I also cc'ed the dispute resolution specialist in the attorney general's office handling our case so they had a record of it as well.

-Get everything in writing. Don't take anyone's word for it. If the sales representative, project manager, service manager, etc promise you something get it in writing. It's much harder for them to dispute it later.

-Keep copies of all paperwork to reference back to or use as evidence to support your dispute.

-Be thorough in your complaint. Explain in detail what happened, how it happened (if you know), effects of it, and include as much evidence as possible to support your claim. Include, again in detail, your desired resolution to the problem.

-While I didn't have to take it to this level, consider recording phone calls. The laws on this vary from state to state so be sure to check on legality before going this route. (Some states only require one party consent while others require all parties involved to agree to it.)

The last thing I'll add to this is to say again that in going through this situation I got the impression most consumers don't know these resources exist. It's because of this that I decided it was important to write this post and share it. As I mentioned earlier our HVAC company was the one that suggested this route to us. Before this I had a vague notion that these things were out there but didn't totally understand how they worked or what they could do. Having been used them successfully I won't hesitate to turn to them again should the need arise and urge anyone else caught in a similar position to do so as well. These agencies and the people that work for them are there to help.