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.