Update on state claim filed

[unknown]

The dealer in most cases has the home finanaced thru a source also - they call it floorplan. In most cases companies that floorplan a home do require the home be paid off when it leaves the location. If you use the dealers finanace company the loan is usually not funded to the dealer until everything is done and you call to your lender so. ( this is how it worked in my state)

If you are using your own source for a loan talk to the dealer about holding some back until your home is set up and everything you agree on is completed ( punch list) I will tell you I never had any trouble with this except for one customer who added to his punch list for a year, that had to be ended. Many dealers should work with this idea if they want the sale.

Have a full understanding of the warranty of the home you are looking at, most do not or will only cover cosmetic items for 30 days . Ex: salepersons tell customers the roof has a 20 year warranty ask what part of the roof , the 20-25-30 year warranty usually covers only the shingles against a manufacture defect in the shingle and that is it.

Ask to see all warranties on items even the factory who builds the home will pass on the warranties. the carpet, the dishwasher, the faucts, flooring,refer,oven and carpet are usually all warrantied thru their manufacture and not the dealer or the builder of the mh. In this state every home came with a packet with the information contined in it. If you are just looking read the information on a display home. If you are ordering read the information for the items you want before you order.

When you buy a home understand that it has traveled on the road and pipes do shake lose you might have someone check all fitting and connections if possible when the water is turned on.
I would have customers turn all the breakers on when the electircty was turned on, and the water heater breakers would never be shut off prior to the water heater being filled this will cause the elements to burn up.
That is not covered under warranty. there are many things like that people just do not think about when they are getting their new home.

Please read and ask questions. I would tell people to bring cameras because after you look at 3 homes they tend run together and it is impossible to rememeber what you saw were or what salesperson said what.

The choice between site built and mh is really up to the consumer I do beleive in the industry, they are very affordale housing option compared to site built and they have many possibilites. I was told I educated my customers to much. But i had many customers thank me because of it.

[Kelly Smart]

As far as financing, we didn't finance our home through dealers finance company. We went through the bank and got a loan for everything. I know with dealers finance company, the home is delivered, setup and trimmed out and you sign off and the dealer gets his money. The bank sent the dealer the money and then they brought the home and set it up.
Alot of the repairs in the home are being considered cosmetic and that is why the state could not rule.but still I explain it this way--if you go buy a brand new loaded out corvette and when you get it home you find several major dents and scratches (some down to the frame), maybe theres come torn carpet inside. Well you have paid all of this money for this car and you would want it fixed. Lets say you take it back to the dealership and they fix the scratches and dents by putting a filler into the cracks & dents and re paint it without sanding. Now you have brand new car that actually looks worse than it did when it was brought home. Now comes the problem, the dealer has tried to fix it and his people don't know how and the car maker doesn't want to get involved because the dealer has messed the car up more. The problems with the car are mostly cosmetic, there is no structural damage, so your lemon law wont fix it. This is where we are.
This scenerio is what we are dealing with-- our ceilings were cracked in most rooms and the dealer's trim guy came in and piles sheetrock mud on these cracks, didn't sand them and the sprayed acoustic over them. Every repair he did looks like crap. He has ended up spraying the ceiling with accoustic 4 times, trying to make it when you look at it you cannot see the repairs. The only thing this has accomplished is to make the rest of the ceilings sag in the areas where there is not a support beam. When you look up at our ceilings you see the wavy ceiling where it sags in between the beams and then if there any reapaired cracks(mind you some of these cracks went all the way across the ceiling in places) then you can see the outline of these repaired areas. It is hideous looking. I don't know if you have read all of my posts in the repair area of this board but at one time the dealership owner told me --Well, that is just how sheetrock does. I can take youin $300k houses and show you their ceilings, they look like this.
This whole ordeal has been unreal.
We had a attorney appt. last Wed. but he cancelled due to a funeral. We will have to reschedule for next week depending on work schedules.
I'll keep you posted.

[RJ]

Kelly,
I'm going through similar experience with Clayton Homes.
Have had meeting with your lawyer? What did he advise you? I'm ready to seek a lawyer as well.
Is there a special lawyer I should seek for this kind of situation?

[Kelly]

We talked to several lawyers and decided not to pursue that route because they would only take the case if we sued the manufacturer and in our situation the manufacturer had done nothing wrong. We are only concerned with the dealer because he is responsible for all of this. In our situation Franklin has taken the responsibility and they have fixed everything. It took their guys 3 weeks but 9 days shy of 6 months we have been able to move into our house and I am finally living with my husband and kids for the first time since January. It is ashame that the Manufactured Home Association has such generalized guidelines because it really is no help in situations such as mine.
We are going to take the dealer to small claims court to try and recoup expenses for house pmts, hotel bills, storage bldgs, etc. Normally I would not worry about this kind of thing but this dealer caused alot of unnecessary stress. It is absurd that the home was delivered on 1/25/05 and we finally were able to move our stuff in here 7/16/05. Definitely something wrong with that picture.

[Kelly]

Here is another update on our home. After everything was said and done, Franklin ended up sending people from the factory to fix our home. These guys were here about 3 weeks and they worked from 0630 - 1800 everyday including weekends. They did a great job. It is unreal how much stuff they had to rip out from the other guys repairs and re fix. It is amazing to think that if these guys had been the first guys in here to fix stuff, it would not have taken 171 days to get us in this house. But it is like I told them, my husband and I do not feel the problems we had with the home were Franklin's responsibility. We know what the house looked like on the lot, when it was delivered, after the first group of trim guys got ahold of it, after the second group of trim guys got hold of it and we know the dealer was 99% to blame for this situation because he sent people who were completely incompetent to fix our house.
I know several people replied that the manufacturer should be held responsible and in this case they willingly accepted responsibility and got us in our home.When we talked to them they told us that this dealer would no longer be selling their product. I think this says alot for Franklin because this dealer is a million dollar year seller and for them to tke their product line away from him says alot.
As far as Franklin is concerned, we have been nothing but impressed with them. We love the home. We worked one on one with the service manager and she was fantastic, she called me when she said she would and she returned every call we made to her, she did the things she said she would and you really dont get customer service like that very much anymore. The guys they sent to fix our house did an outstanding job, they were pleasant, hard working and took pride in their job. I know they hated it everyday when I would show up because they didn't know if I had found something wrong with a repair they had done, but they were always pleasant and refixed several things that I didn't like.
Fir anyone out there who is considering a Franklin home, I cnnot say enough good stuff about them. They really came through for us.
Thanks
Kelly

[Don]

My Geothermal installer put a 4 ton unit in my 1999 Patriot 28x76 without doing a Manual J, to determine what size was required; although, the data sheet was under the sink, and stated clearly to "go up to 39,700 btu." [12,000 btu = 1 ton]. This data sheet is obviously, the HUD Code. The unit is seriously oversized, and uses as much kilowatts as a conventional. It is my understanding that HUD will force strict compliance with adherence to their code. All information pertaining to this is greatly appreciated.