I wanted to finish sharing what happened with our other closing in Tucson last week.  This one was my brother-in-law’s house for which I’m power of attorney.  First I need to back up about 2 months.  My husband has his real estate license and is the realtor for my brother-in-law in this deal.  I’m the power of attorney which just means I’m signing for everything.

Two months ago my brother-in-law and husband receive an email from the builder that says that they are no longer offering the marble countertops and surrounds in the bathrooms like the one that we chose at the design center appointment.  They were instead substituting a solid surface Formica product and we had 48 hours to get to the design center to view the color options and choose which one to go with.  So my husband drives to Tucson the next day to look at the choices.  There were three different options.  He and two of the design consultants who were working that day got out all of the other color samples of things that were chosen for the house in order to coordinate.  They got out the carpet, tile, cabinetry, made note of the lighting and hardware choices, and lined everything up with the three color samples for the new Formica product.  My husband took a photo of all three choices and with the designers chose the one that matched everything the best.

We then emailed the photo of the three choices to my brother-in-law along with our recommendation based on looking at everything coordinated together.  We let the builder know what choice was made and that was the end of that.

A week later (maybe?) someone from the design center called to say that all three of those color choices were not being offered now, and they would be putting in a different color.  We interpreted this to mean they were putting in a different color choice out of the three that we looked at, but not our first choice.  We weren’t happy about this after investing the time to analyze the choices and coordinate everything, so we complained about this, showed the email stating that we had the three colors to choose from, and we were told that since we had it in writing, they had no choice but to honor our top pick.  So we were getting our pick after all.

Fast forward to a couple days ago when we were at the final walk through of the house.  The house is finished and we were going through it marking it with blue tape.  The quality of the house was very good.  There were very few blemishes and we went through just a small amount of blue tape.  A sharp contrast from the other walk through we had on that same day!

We get to the bathrooms and low and behold, our color choice was not installed.  We had two bathrooms with counterops, a tub surround, and two shower surrounds all in a pure white Formica.  Pure white was not one of the three color choices they gave us, and certainly was not the one choice that we made that they assured us they would honor!  This Formica product was dull, matte, very thin, and looked like it would need refinishing.  There were already scratches in it.  The beauty of solid surface is that it can be sanded down and refinished, but who wants to have to do this, even before move in?

We were not pleased.  The superintendent we were walking the house with checked his instructions and it said his crew was supposed to install pure white.  He was not at fault.  After the walk we went to the sales office and let our salesperson know of the error.  We happened to have the digital camera along with the photo of the three choices.  We did not bring a copy of the email that stated that these were our three choices, but we did have the names of the design consultants that helped my husband pull all of the color samples out and coordinate and ultimately helped him choose the best color.

To make a long story short, they refused to do anything about it.  They told us the three options never should have been offered to us and by us not submitting a change order, we implicitly accepted the pure white substitution they had chosen for all of their customers.  Further, they contend that it was simply a “courtesy” that they informed us of the substitution from marble to Formica at all.  If we wanted to change to our color choice now, we would have to pay for a change order, then pay the upgrade difference between the pure white they had installed and the speckled tan color we wanted.  This was unbelievable!!!

The whole afternoon turned into a he-said she-said pissing match with all the troops at the builder digging up emails and documentation to make their case.  Of course we’re out of town away from our office with no copy of the email they sent us with the three color choices (although we do have it).  We did have the digital camera with the photo on it, but it didn’t matter a lick.  They were adamant that there was never any offer of our color and white was always the plan and we should feel blessed that we were informed on “courtesy.”  And they said that Formica is a superior product to marble so we got an upgraded product for no added cost at that.

We ended up arguing with several ranks up the corporate ladder by phone until we finally decided to drive to the corporate offices.  We walked in and asked for the VP of sales.  By now she had been informed of the situation.  Our closing appointment was 15 minutes earlier and we weren’t closing without a concession for their mistake.  We let the VP know that the title company was waiting for us to come over and sign, we’ve spent all afternoon trying to get somewhere with the underlings, and that we’d like the counters changed or money off the house.  She said “sure, whichever option you want.”  They would rip out the counters and put our choice in, which would take 3-5 weeks and an incredible amount of inconvenience for us, or they would give us $5k off the house.

We took the $5k.  They had to re-draw docs and so we left town without closing.  The closing papers and a notary showed up to our front door the next day and we closed.  They made sure to let us know that the $375 notary fee (!!!) was on the house.

I was very surprised the number of people that got involved in this that day, all who stood united to prove the customer wrong.  We had to be very tenacious in speaking to different people, and ultimately the VP.  She was the only one who seemed to have any sense of customer service.  She gave us what we wanted without hesitation.

It was a long, unpleasant day that day.  We feel good about fighting the good fight though.  It needed to be done on principle, plus we were there as realtor and power of attorney.  We felt an obligation to do everything we could to represent my brother-in-law since he couldn’t be there himself.  I still don’t feel great about the outcome because I think these countertops are going to need refinishing, but $5k is $5k.  He’ll get that in his pocket later when he sells.