twodice2
01-02-2014, 09:07 PM
We found a little pre-owned manufactured home at an open house run by the Villages Sales Office at 704 Roseapple. We were told by the agent that the roof had a lifetime warranty. We were also given a written disclosure stating that there was a lifetime roof over with a transferrable warranty. We gave the agent presenting her listing at the open house a $5,000 deposit on the home. We had been concerned about the age of the roof...27 years. We contacted the agent of a homeowner’s insurance company, who seemed very incredulous about the concept of a lifetime roof warranty, but the Villages Sales Office Agent told us that it did have a lifetime roof warranty which could be transferred to us for a $50.00 fee. The insurance rep also told us that the only company that would have anything to do with this house would be Lloyds of London. The day after we gave the deposit the house flooded due to a burst pipe in the bathroom while unoccupied that basically flooded the whole house. We were advised by the sales manager that the owner would take care of the plumbing problem. She notified us three weeks later that repair work had just begun on the flooding problem, which meant that the water was allowed to continue its damage for three weeks before it was even started to be addressed. We informed the sales manager that we no longer wanted this obviously flawed house that was misrepresented to us by their agent. We noticed their listing on the property was then changed to a “five year” warranty on the roof, no longer a lifetime warranty. We were obviously lied to, and on the advice of the second inspector (the first one was provided by the Villages itself), who we located on our own through another realty company, after eyeballing the house that he recommended that we not conclude the sale on this questionable property. He declined to do a complete inspection because he thought that the single man who was actually working on the house was not a licensed contractor and that the whole thing might end up in a legal suit. He was not happy with his overall perception of the house. When we discussed all this with the sales manager, she continued to pressure us to sign final papers on the house, or we would lose our deposit. She ultimately said that she was not going to return the deposit under any conditions. This posture has continued to the present, even though the house was misrepresented to us by the listing agent and the water damage was not corrected immediately. Your readers are welcome to contact us personally at twodice2@yahoo.com to discuss any concerns they might have over buying a property from the Villages, having heard of our unbelievable problems in trying to get our deposit back. We are willing to discuss our problems with the sales department at the Villages with any other publication that critiques their property.