Poor Holts

[mattm]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but what a crappy story and huge eye opener:

House passes inspection despite being built at wrong elevation

Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=nf&gid=323768496948

They've probably exhausted their legal options but who knows, if anyone here has legal background and can help, they'd probably appreciate it.

I don't understand how a house can pass an inspection without being inspected and how a contractor can build something without a permit, get one later without an inspection and not in any way be legally responsible later on. Someone is at fault and it's definitely not the Holt's.

[Northern Wish]

If thats where I am thinking it is, off of Ryan Rd.- its basically an old swamp that was dried out when the new highway was put in.

Do you know these folks?

Thats near DaveO's hood!

[Tungsten Gruvsten]

yeah crazy - house inspections and permits etc seems almost like a crock of shit in many cases...I remember a couple years ago when I noticed that I only had a copy of my electrical rough-in certificate and I hadn't had my final inspection and it was past due....I phoned the ESA and apologized profusely and tried to schedule an inspection and she said it had passed already....I asked how since no one had come to the house to inspect it...she wasn't sure but said if the inspector was 'confident in your work' then it would have been ok'ed.....WTF?

[Northern Wish]

[color:purple]You should start a fire and sue the city!

[dave-O]

What's up with the link to the 2 year old news story? Not sure if it's on the old swamp or not, but yeah, that's a stone's throw from Rancho Rahmer.

[Northern Wish]

Woah, I just noticed the publishing date too.

There was some facebook chatter today, but I think MattM posted that as well.....

[SaggyBalls]

Just drive around the 'outskirts' of town and look at the tracts of land that are now filled with big ugly cookiecutter 'custom' homes...developed without any planning for COMMUNITY development.

Just as awful.

Gross.

[RobL]

If thats where I am thinking it is, off of Ryan Rd.- its basically an old swamp that was dried out when the new highway was put in.

Do you know these folks?

Thats near DaveO's hood!

they are friends of mine from back in high school, posted it on facebook to try and find a resolution to this. and yes the story is two years ago and nothing has happened yet. They can't sell the house cause no one will buy it. they are just stuck with the problem. thanks rob

here is their story if you can handle the long read:)

"My name is Lisa Holt, I am 29 years old, and in January 2006, my husband, Tim, and I purchased our first home. Unfortunately what should have been one of the most exciting times in our lives turned out to be a real nightmare. I’ll start from the beginning.

We purchased our house on Penrose Street in Moncton, NB, when it was the first and only house built in a newer part of the Tanya Gales Subdivision in January 2006. The road and curb had not been put in, and it looked perfect. We did everything right, we hired a Real Estate Agent (Exit Realty), we hired a Lawyer and we took all the precautionary steps to purchasing our first home. We were told that our house had been built a year earlier, and because of some issues with a lien that had been put on the entire subdivision (due to some unpaid bills by the subdivision owners), the subdivision owners had purchased the house from the builder in good faith. So we did not buy direct from the builder, but rather from the subdivision owners.

As spring approached, we eagerly awaited to landscape our lot. We obtained a copy of our drainage plan from our lawyer, who had explained to us the importance of following this plan to ensure there would never be an issue with flooding. In March 2006, we were in our driveway when we were approached by the subdivision owner. He said they were interested in doing some dozing, leveling, cut down a few dead trees, put crushed stone in our driveway and spread topsoil…all for $1,200. Now, we had been getting quotes for the past few weeks from other landscaping companies, and we had been hearing anywhere from $2,500 to $7,000 to do the work. This quote wasn’t even in the same ball park. We asked him what the “catch†was, and he said: It’s because it’s our subdivision and we want it to look nice. We want to sell the lots around you, so we want your lot to look good. We trusted what he was telling us was true, so we accepted their business and over the next couple of weeks, they came in did some grading, dozing and dropped off a couple loads of crushed stone.

Then, about a month later, the lot to the right of our house had been sold, and the foundation had gone up. This was when we got our first inclination that something was wrong. The foundation of our new neighbor’s house appeared to be a good three or four feet higher than the top of our foundation. We thought they must have made a mistake, so we called the subdivision owner, who assured us that he would take care of the situation, saying that he noticed they were building too high, and he would go over to talk to them. Then a few weeks later, the curb went in, and it was so high we couldn’t even get into our driveway. This was when our inclination turned into fear. The curb was at least two feet higher than the top of our foundation. Something wasn’t right. We contacted the subdivision owner again and he admitted that it was in fact our house that was little low, but not to worry, we could just landscape our lot so that all drainage would flow towards the back of our house. Now, at this point, we were uncomfortable, because it became evident that we would not be able to follow the approved drainage plan that our lawyer had warned us about the importance of. We decided to call the city of Moncton to get their input. Soon after is when we got the bad news.

We received a call back from a Building Inspector with the City of Moncton. His message was that he was already aware of our situation and was actually planning on contacting us on this matter, and wanted us to come in to his office for a meeting. On July 4, 2006, we met with this building inspector, who told us point blank that our house was built two feet too low, and he advised us to get a lawyer and try to find out who was responsible, because we would have ten days to take ACTION or the City of Moncton would have no choice but to come in and raise our house for us, at our expense. (((What? Raise our house? At our expense? Take action....what action? What action can we possibly take at this point...what are our options?))) Unfortunately, the building inspector had no answers to any of our many questions. He left us blank faced. He did, however, assure us that as long as we were “taking action†the City would not attempt to raise our house. ((( Well that’s a relief...now if we could only figure out what “action†they wanted us to take ))).

We left that meeting frantic, calling family and friends, trying to get some advice on what we should do. Everyone was in shock. We contacted our lawyer, but he had retired since we had purchased our house, so we were referred to a new lawyer, and met with him the very next day to discuss our options.

One option that was soon suggested by our lawyer was to apply for a “Variance†with the Greater Moncton Planning Commission. To apply for a Variance meant we would basically apply to have the elevation of our house approved to remain at the elevation it is currently at. To have a variance approved, we were advised that we would have to hire an Engineer and have them design a whole new drainage plan that would satisfy the Greater Moncton Planning Commission and the City of Moncton’s Engineering Department. We contacted the Greater Moncton Planning Commission right away and began to work with them on the process of submitting an application. Based on their recommendation, we hired an Engineer and designed our new plan, which cost us $1,000, filled out our application and on August 31, 2006 brought our application to the Greater Moncton Planning Commission. When I arrived at the Greater Moncton Planning Commission that day, however, I was told that they could not accept our application. ((( What do you mean you cannot accept our application? We’ve been working on this for over a month? ))) The gentleman at the front desk explained that there is a Bi-Law that states the elevation of your foundation must be at least 0.5 meters above the crown of the road. Our foundation elevation worked out to be 0.025 m above the crown of the road; which would be a breech of the bi-law. Then, at this point, the gentleman who had been working on our file since day one came out to the front desk and debated the issue for a few minutes, then turned in my direction and said to me: It doesn’t look good for you, I’m sorry. ((( What??? Are you kidding me? We hired an engineer and designed a new drainage plan! And you’re only realizing this now? ))) Two months worth of emotion came out of me at this moment. I felt so defeated. I asked that they please just try to help us. They said they would see what they could do, and would contact me the following week. So I paid the $250 application fee and submitted my file.

This is where the story starts to gets interesting. The next day, I was trying to make sense of everything, because something just wasn’t adding up. How could this have happened in the first place? Why are builders allowed to make such mistakes? Why wasn’t this discovered during the City of Moncton’s building inspection? So I called the Building Inspection department at the City and asked who did the original building inspection on our house. Come to find out, it was the Engineer that had pulled us into his office the month before to tell us we had to take “action†or they would have no choice but to take action for us. ((( Why didn’t he tell us he had done our building inspection in the first place? What was he hiding? ))) I asked to speak with another Inspector, so I was transferred to another gentleman and my first question to him was: Can you please tell me what is the purpose of a building inspection? He answered: The building permit’s primary role is to protect the property owner and community by assuring that the development is in conformity with Regulations, By-Laws, and the National Building Code of Canada. ((( Well I happen to know that there is a very important Bi-Law that states that the elevation of your foundation must be at least 0.5 meters above the crown of the road...why wasn’t that Bi-Law enforced when my house was being built? ))) He told me that there is no requirement for the City of Moncton to check elevations of a house when they are being built. ((( Hmmmm. So this bi-law is not enforced when it can still be rectified if there is a problem, yet it is enforced after the fact?? ))) I asked to see a copy of the building inspection, to which he responded: I will have to check with our lawyers. ((( Why? Why would I not be able to obtain a copy of my building inspection if there was nothing to hide? And why is public information being withheld from me? ))) We called the Greater Moncton Planning Commission and asked them to put our application for the Variance on hold until we were able to get some of these questions answered. A week later, our lawyer obtained our building inspection and it stated that the builder began construction without a building permit. So, he poured the foundation before he obtained a building permit. ((( Why are these builders able to build without a building permit, and not be fined…and not have the work that they did before the permit was issued inspected?? )))

In an act of desperation, we decided to bring our story to the Mayor (Lorne Mitton at the time) and City Council. I sent our story by email, and within an hour, I had gotten responses from a couple of City Councilors. A few weeks later, we got a call from our lawyer who said that he had good news, that it appeared that the City was accepting some liability and he told us that the City felt partially responsible and was willing to help us in some way. BUT... a few weeks later, we received a letter from the City saying they are not accepting any responsibility and our only option to relieve the elevation problem is to raise the house. In the interim, they issued us a “temporary drainage plan†that we were supposed to implement in the short term (which would cost about $10,000 to implement). Reading this letter left us confused and scared. We can’t afford to put in a bunch of drains and dig a bunch of ditches for something that is just meant to temporarily solve a problem. We asked our lawyer to set up a meeting with the City and we also asked that the City at least explore the option of allowing us to keep the house at its current elevation and to approve the interim Drainage Plan as a permanent solution rather than a temporary measure.

So on April 13, 2007, Tim and I met with legal council for the City of Moncton, an Engineer with the City of Moncton, and our lawyer to go over our options. After much discussion, it was advised that we would most likely be able to keep our house at the current elevation, and that the City of Moncton would pay to have the work done according to a new registered drainage plan. The Engineer estimated that this would cost aprox $10,000 to do all this work, and the legal councilor advised that he would have to meet with council to get approval for the funding. In the meeting, we asked point blank: who was going to pay for all this, and the legal councilor looked us in the eyes and said: "Don’t you guys worry about a thing. We will take care of it." We left that meeting with a renewed faith…but unfortunately, it was short lived.

Our lawyer called us a few days later to tell us it looks like everything is going to be approved, the only thing is, the City is going to ask us to sign a release that basically is going to protect them against the law society, so that the law society can never go after them. This made us nervous but we were still happy that everything seemed to be falling into place.

The City’s legal councilor was scheduled to bring the request for funding to a private council meeting scheduled for June 6, 2007. On June 7, 2007, we got word from our lawyer that City Council voted AGAINST the request for funding to fix the problem. They voted against it. We got a letter from the City of Moncton stating that although they feel bad for the situation that we find ourselves in, the City is not prepared to accept any responsibility. Accepting responsibility would open the floodgates to similar type cases. But the thing that upset me the most about the letter is that it says: “It is the position of the City of Moncton that appropriate safeguards were in place, in the form of a Drainage Agreement/ Plan which should have been detected and explained to your clients by their solicitor at the time of purchase. I cannot explain why this did not happen, but the City cannot be considered at fault for this failureâ€. As I had stated at the beginning of this letter, our lawyer DID explain to us the importance of the Drainage Plan. He too relied on the accuracy of the drainage plan. In my opinion, it was NOT our solicitor that failed us…it was the reliability of the Drainage Plan that failed us. It was the City of Moncton's Building Inspection Department that failed us.

We soon contacted another lawyer, and she advised that it would be in our best interest to re-apply for a variance and to just put a period on this whole situation once and for all. We agreed to re-apply and even accepted the fact that should the variance be approved, we would be stuck with having to pay for the work to be done to get our house up to code.

In August 2007, we contacted the Greater Moncton Planning Commission once again, and on September 27th, 2007, we resubmitted our application for a Variance. We were assured that our application would be on the agenda for a meeting schedule for October 24th, 2007. They also indicated that everyone at the Greater Moncton Planning Commission was on our side and we had nothing to worry about. I contact the Greater Moncton Planning Commission again mid October, and they indicated that our application has been added to the agenda. On October 24th, the day of the meeting, I decided to go online and have a look at the agenda. This is when I noticed that our application was in fact not on the agenda at all. I called the Greater Moncton Planning Commission and they apologized and said they meant to call us, but had been swamped. They said that because they were so busy, they never really had time to review our file thoroughly. They said there were a few things they wanted to review before it went to the meeting. I asked if I should be worried, and they assured me not at all. They told me they just wanted to make sure everything was iin order. So I asked if they could get the application on the agenda for November’s meeting (scheduled for November 21) and they indicated it shouldn’t be a problem, but if they couldn’t get it on the agenda, they would contact me to let me know. On November 20, 2007, I called to verify that our application would be on the agenda, and they told me that not only would my application NOT be the agenda for the November meeting, but the Greater Moncton Planning Commission has decided that they are no longer going to back our request for the variance…they decided they are going to recommend that it NOT be approved. When I chocked out the words "why", they explained that they just don’t feel comfortable recommending that we be granted a variance, because they feel it is too much of a liability. They cannot guarantee that our basement will never flood. So I asked: Could you ever even guarantee that our basement would never flood if we were at the proper elevation? To which they responded no…then began to tell me that they feel really bad that we find ourselves in this mess, but unfortunately there is nothing they can do. They told me the good news is, we have the opportunity to appeal based on “hardshipâ€, in which case, our request would be presented in front of a provincial appeal board. I had a hard time understanding how this could be good news...but regardless, I asked: so what if they don’t grant us the appeal?? Then what happens? To which they responded: "Don’t worry about that". At this point, all I could do was laugh. I already knew the answer to that question…we would be all out of options.

On December 19, 2007, our variance request was DENIED by a 4 to 10 vote in front of the Greater Moncton Planning Commission Board. The Board members assured us that their decision was in our best interest, because they were sure that if we appealed their decision, it would be granted.

The final nail in our coffin came on July 30, 2008. We received a notice from the Appeal Board which stated that although we find ourselves in an unfortunate situation; it was not the Variance Request denial that caused us the hardship, therefore our appeal was also denied. So there we had it. We sat there that night in disbelief, utter defeat and panic. Tim and I were getting married in August 2008…and unfortunately for us, our wedding month was off to a very bad start. What should have been an exciting time in our lives turned out to be one of the most trying, because our thoughts were consumed with trying to figure out how we were going to get ourselves out of this mess. Reading this back now (in current year, 2010...still in the same mess), it makes me so sad to read how stressful and upsetting our wedding year was.

We priced out having the house raised and were quoted about $75,000.00 when you factor in refinishing the basement (which we had done when we moved in), and re-doing all of the plumbing, electrical etc. Plus the cost of moving all of our stuff out and finding another place to live for a month. We simply cannot afford this, and even if we could, the thought of taking out a loan and putting this much money into fixing a mistake that wasn’t our own just cannot be justified.

The reality is, we are in a house that is too low and we have to do something about it, but no one seems to want to help us. The only people involved in this case that didn’t do anything wrong was us, but now we have to pay for other peoples mistakes. Mistakes that we can’t afford to pay for. To date, we have paid thousands of dollars alone in legal fees and engineer bills, but nothing has been accomplished. We keep going back to square one, and we are flushing our money down the toilet. It's been a nightmare.

Thank you so much taking the time to read about our story. If you have any suggestions or can help in any way, please email us at nightmareonpenrose@hotmail.com."

[ollie]

This really sucks and I hope it gets resolved in your friend's favour but people need to pay attention to red flags:

We were told that our house had been built a year earlier, and because of some issues with a lien that had been put on the entire subdivision (due to some unpaid bills by the subdivision owners), the subdivision owners had purchased the house from the builder in good faith. So we did not buy direct from the builder, but rather from the subdivision owners.

[bradm]

tracts of land

g3YiPC91QUk

Aloha,

Brad

[Tooly]

Just drive around the 'outskirts' of town and look at the tracts of land that are now filled with big ugly cookiecutter 'custom' homes...developed without any planning for COMMUNITY development.

Just as awful.

Gross.

it makes me so sick, but its also what pays my bills, so i go into work every day i can and contribute to the shitty sprawl of shitty houses. You wouldnt believe some of the things ive seen builders get away with, tell me just to cover it up with the wrap, dont worry about that hole in the foundation.

makes me sick