Moving On

After 7 years, 3 months, and 28 days of owning our Sienna, the sale of it closed on August 20th. We initially had planned to wait a few more years but circumstances came together earlier in the year where we were able to build again. This time however we went with a different, smaller builder.

From the 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and 1800 square feet in our Sienna we now have 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, and 2604 square feet in our new house. We also have another 325 square feet of unfinished storage space on the second floor that we can finish off later. Our lot is bigger too, we went from .25 acres to .81 acres with thick woods behind us and a stream running through the back of the property. Among other things, the house includes a first floor guest room with a full bath, something that was really important to us as family gets older. We also have a front porch with space for rocking chairs, a feature we've always wanted but never had on our previous two houses.

From the comments I've gotten over the years this blog has been really useful to a lot of folks building with Ryan Homes so it'll stay up indefinitely. I may eventually post a few updates here and there from our new house as well. 

Quarantine Updates

It's been almost two years since I last posted and it's time for an update.

Like a lot of people we spent part of our time in quarantine last year doing home improvement projects.

The first thing we tackled in a weekend was staining our deck and fence. We had last done both back in 2015-2016 and it was time for an update. With the deck we thoroughly power washed it beforehand before using Behr Premium Advanced Deckover. The one we used was textured to be make the deck more slip resistant. A gallon and a half was enough to do our entire 12x16 foot deck.

For the fence we used Behr semi-transparent Waterproofing Stain & Sealer. It's supposed to be good for eight years on fences but I don't imagine I'd wait that long to paint it again. 

The rest of the updates involved our front door. I had been promising my wife a storm door since we moved in back in 2014 and finally got around to buying and installing one. For that we bought an Anderson Easy Install Aluminum Storm Door. The 45 minute "Easy Install" was more like two hours of sweating and a bit of swearing but it was fairly straightforward. The frame of the storm door fits into the existing frame of the door and is secured with screws. With the exception of having my wife hold the door in place while I put the first few screws in it was also something I was able to do by myself. The only downside we found was that with our house facing east and getting direct sunlight the storm door handle gets exceptionally hot to the touch. We solved that by sliding the finger of an old glove over it.

With the storm door in place my wife painted the front door with Behr Hidden Sea Glass.

The last update to the front door was something else I'd had on my list for a while. I replaced the existing keyed lock with a Nest X Yale lock. I had looked at others but since we already have a Nest Hello doorbell and a Nest Cam it made more sense to keep everything under one app. Installation was very simple and made for a worthy upgrade. Especially with not having a covered front porch, it's very convenient when it's raining to unlock the door prior to getting out of the car and not having to fumble with keys. Everybody has their own door code too (up to eight numbers) and when we went away on vacation for a week later in the summer I was able to set up a temporary code for our neighbors that picked up our mail and fed our cats.

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.

State Complaint Part II: Resolution

Back in March I mentioned that I filed complaints with not only the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation but also the Virginia Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection. This was a result of them not properly registering our HVAC unit for the full ten year warranty like we were told they would do. As of last month our complaint with the Attorney General's office is closed and I'm happy to say we got the result we asked for.

In mid-April (I'm a little behind on writing this up) we received word through the attorney general's office from Ryan Homes' general counsel and the current service manager that they were purchasing us an extended warranty through AIG. The coverage and conditions were essentially the same as what we would have received if they had simply registered the unit to begin with; namely it only covers parts and excludes things considered normal wear and tear. It does however have a ninety day waiting period and won't take effect until early July. Because of that I have it in writing via an email from the service manager that Ryan Homes will cover any issues under the same conditions as the purchased warranty until then.

When we were first told about the solution being provided to us I was skeptical about it. I'm wary of home warranty companies owing to a less than stellar experience years ago on our old house. Because of that I went back and forth with the service manager with questions to make sure we wouldn't have an issue when the time came to utilize this one. Mainly,  I wanted to be absolutely sure that we would not have an issue using our own contractor and I wanted to be clear on how the process would work when we needed a repair. Along with getting answers to these questions in writing, the HVAC contractor we use also looked over the service agreement for us to make sure there was nothing questionable in it. With all of that being satisfactory we ultimately closed the complaint with the two state agencies.

There are ultimately two takeaways from this. First off, I have nothing but profound gratitude for Virginia Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection and the dispute resolution specialist I dealt with there. I feel like if it wasn't for them we would not have gotten a positive resolution on this.

Second, I am still angry with Ryan Homes about how this whole process played out. Not only the stress I felt, but the time and energy I had to waste getting this resolved. I said from the beginning that all I wanted was a guarantee in writing that we would be reimbursed for any parts that would have been covered had the unit been properly registered years ago. Because Ryan Homes and the service manager refused to do this (instead telling me they would handle things on a "case-by-case basis") I had to file the complaints with the state. In the end they gave me what I wanted but I shouldn't have had to go through all of this to get it.