Meritage Homes Reviews

I had logged a complaint with Meritage Home service support on February 28th 2017 and it's June 02nd 2017 today and none of the issues are yet resolved- neither anyone from Meritage Home is even bothered to follow-up. I have been sending reminders and trying to call the warranty manager and he does not respond to the calls.

Secondly the design center has a team who has no clue what they are offering to the buyer based on the architecture. My sales person during the initial contract signing period mentioned the house had a small patio and made us to sign the contract without any measurements of the patio. When the house was complete the patio was not even 2 feet.

Also after signing the contract when I went to the design center- they offered me for a fan connection on the patio. I agreed to the connection with the fact that patio will be a standard one. The design center team had no professional expertise and knowledge who offered for fan connection on the patio not realizing the blades of the fan will hit the side walls if I fix a fan. To cover up this issue- they fixed a light in that area. I have attached pictures- which can tell- how crazy it was to offer a fan connection- when a fan cannot even fix in that location.

Any professional design team would have advised the customer- that the patio is very small and you can't fix a fan. Also, the sales team should have advised that this is not a standard patio- it's just a 2 feet concrete area outside the house. My personal experience- Meritage Homes is not the right choice to buy your dream house- they have made us totally unhappy with purchase of first dream home.

Our stamped concrete patio was not pitched properly and directs water against our foundation. Naturally we did not discover that until we moved in. Meritage wanted to fix it by filling the voids, re-leveling the surface, and then re-coating the entire stamped concrete patio we had paid for with a cheap coating that looks like crap. Now our screened porch has stamped concrete and the patio outside is crap. When you read the Meritage warranty, the quality and method of any required remediation is entirely at Meritage's discretion. When you sign your purchase contract with them, you are explicitly accepting all of the terms of the substandard warranty you will not see until closing. I suggest looking for another builder.

Our house came with standard tray ceilings that they had forgotten to do. We had to remind them. We paid for upgrades that they failed to do so until we pointed them out. We paid $9,500 for upgraded stairs, that they had to come back and fix because they didn't installed them right before we moved in. The kitchen cabinets are all scratched, they look used instead of new. A wall in our kitchen is crooked. The foundation started cracking before we even moved in, according to them this is normal. The painters are a joke, two months after we have moved in and they still haven't finished painting the house. Two months after we moved in and we still can't use our master shower because it leaks water into the floor. Still waiting for them to come and fix it.

Our second story floor is uneven. The builder said they can't fix it now until the 11 month. So for the next 9 months we are gonna be walking on a uneven floor. So much for a new house. The fresh air unit started making loud humming noise weeks after we moved in. I notified the builder, 26 days later, still waiting for them to come and fix it. Less than 3 months after we moved in, the kitchen floor started cracking. On our second shower, they ran out of the original grout so they used a different color. Yes they left our shower with two different grout colors. Can't make this stuff up. You will be rushed to close. They will say that they'll take care of anything that has been completed by the time you move in. But you will be at their mercy, you will have to take time off from work to be there with the contractors. I would never buy another house from Meritage Homes.

Can you imagine any other builder could be unreasonable and even behave like a criminal to push a buyer to close within one week after the house completion? Where is our customer's right??!! Horrible, horrible, horrible builder and sales people. I could not reach anyone to help. So I even contacted their customer service online to help me to reach the sales' manager to contact me, but the manager never contacted me either!!! What a bunch of gangsters. All they care was to take customers' money and our customers' right are totally ** to them.

I am still waiting for any response from Meritage to let me close in a normal pace instead of just one week. After knowing they would charge me $250 per day, I even dare not spend $600 to order a home inspection anymore. What a nightmare!!! I still don't know what to do now because nobody in Meritage responded to give me time to close. My mortgage lender only locked my interest till May 15th. Meritage is such a big company. Can't believe they can behave this way. Horrible, horrible!

A little over a year later in November of 2016, Meritage told us they would need to remove most of our furniture to properly do the drywall and painting. So, they loaded up our furniture and stored it in two pods that were placed in our driveway. It was estimated it would take 7-10 days to complete the work. Clearly we were concerned about having a team or workers in our home for that period of time. We asked Meritage for assurances that this would be ok and safe. Meritage assured us with confidence these were professionals and it would be ok, they were fully insured/bonded. They even went on to say the vetting process was extensive and time consuming to be accepted on their vendor list. Meritage subcontracted the work out to Villarreal, a Texas based sheet rocking company.

The second day they were in our home my wife's engagement and wedding ring were stolen. This was a serious economic loss and a irreplaceable loss of memories attached to the rings of 20 years. We met with a figure head from Villarreal and a area manager from Meritage. Amazingly, Villarreal could not produce the last names of the workers. He said they had been busy and confirmed they commonly utilize day workers. One of these workers told my wife directly he had been recently released from prison and that they were not being paid enough for the work they perform. Villarreal's representative confirmed that might be the case or he might have just been bragging, but he did not know for sure since he didn't have their last names.

After the rings were stolen, we filed a report with the Katy police. They could only find 2 of the 3 workers from Villarreal after months of investigation. We found Villarreal very uncooperative and accusatory regarding our lost jewelry. The two workers they were able to find finally told the investigator they didn't do it, and that was the end of the investigation. After months of consideration, the official position of Meritage Homes is as follows: it is not our fault this is the responsibility of Villarreal, we are sorry, but it is our loss.

I lived right smack dab in between three other homes being built following mine as I was the first on the block here. I suffered so much dirt and dust in my home and on the exterior of the home. It looked like I live in a war zone. All my screens and doors were covered in dirt. It was tracked in my house. I had to put plastic over my carpets and furniture to avoid damage and really didn't move everything in to avoid damaging my furniture, rugs, etc. There were areas on the exterior of the home that were unfinished, missing screens, and damaged screens. I paid $1700 to pave my patio and $600 to add some artificial foliage that was damaged. My entire home needed to be washed down. I have had issues with the fixtures in my master bath and they had to go through a wall in my bedroom that was repaired so badly and still sits unfinished. This was over a month ago.

I have had issues with the bathroom mirrors not being properly mounted and the fixtures in my children's rooms not being properly installed. I currently have several rooms that have nails coming out of the ceiling and are progressively getting worse everyday. Last week, the windows, which I opened for the first time ever, in my sons room are not staying open. They are defective. I am literally in tears at this point when I think of every single time the builders send these incompetent workers to my home, take my time away from work and my family, and still leave the job incomplete or leave a huge disgusting mess behind for me to clean up. I am a single mom and I am extremely busy and NEVER have enough time!!! I have reached my threshold!!! I will be seeking out legal advice at this point as I AM MISERABLE HERE!!! The sooner I can get out of this community, the better off I will be.

We had numerous issues along the way of building of our new home (one includes a misunderstanding on the "design center", the construction manager was unwilling to fix the mistake (which was on their end) and was very unprofessional responding back to our questions of what had happened. After coming to an "agreement" things were finally "settled", we have been in our new home for 5 1/2 months and we keep finding more and more problems. Carpet has already buckled, kitchen cabinets are all hung incorrectly, and this is only the beginning of the rushed job and laziness this company has provided for us.

One issue that we are running into this time around is the amount of tires on our vehicles that have popped due to the lack of cleaning the streets. We are on our third tire purchase in less than 6 months. They have refused to help reimburse any payments of any sort as it's a "construction zone" and they have people "who walk around and look for stuff in the road"!!! The trash from the workers that is in our lawn continuously being blown daily is unbelievable. My husband and I completely understand that things happen, but the lack of customer service after you get into your home and they get your money leads me to write this review of disappointment.

Wisenbaker has zero respect for customer's time; time you've taken off work and/or rearranged your schedule to accommodate their workers. After finding out my appointment on (3/9/17) was cancelled internally I was in communication with (Jamila) supervisor whose department was responsible for canceling my appointment. She offered to reschedule at my convenience, but I requested to speak to a manager. I then contacted (Andrew) whom I was told is the district mgr advising my frustrations with his company; who wanted to figure out what he could do. I had to rescheduled and confirmed a Saturday appointment (3/19/17) at 9:00 am with Andrew who ensured he was personally handling and there would be no issues. I, NOT Andrew, Jamila or even a representative called to confirm my appointment for Saturday. I contacted Jamila after NO show at 10 am.

The contractors finally arrived over 3 hours later and left my laundry room a mess. I left several messages with Jamila and Andrew with no return call. I finally heard from Andrew on Tuesday (3/21/17) who advised he was on vacation and empty apologies. He also said he "wants to make it right". To say the least which is what he offered was completely insulting. The work was finally complete on 3/23/17. A job that was and should have been completed in 1 day, 4 hrs took weeks which includes NO shows and reschedules. This group is not well versed in what excellent customer service is let alone what good customer service looks like. Accountability starts at the top and Wisenbaker lacks it. If you're in the market for a home, or remodeling stay away from Meritage Homes and any of its affiliated vendors like Wisenbaker and others!

Sun Edison owns all parts that could fix this system not Meritage. They are responsible for choosing this company and not having any rights to the materials that were used on their homes they built. All parts need to be taken out of homes and rerouted to make home up to code without the system. Meritage by email stated that they would honor the warranty and fix problem. I put in my warranty claim 8/31/16. So far nothing has been fixed and all we have received is a letter stating they are trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile our warranty gets closer to expiring. Looking for company to do a Class Action Suit!

One of the worst construction outfits I have ever had to deal with. When you purchase a $500,000 home you expect excellent craftsmanship and you would expect that your issues would be addressed within a timely matter. So unfortunately for Meritage anybody that asked me I told them do not buy from them. They have poor craftsmanship. They build with low grade products and verbatim we were told "that's not how we repair things" in reference to a wall that was off by 3 inches. Their fix was to use mud to build the wall up so that it no longer looked crooked. Had they addressed her concerns from the beginning regarding worked 2 x 4's. Cracked 2 x 4's walls that were not even and mitered corners that were off by a quarter inch on every corner of my house. Had they done it correctly to start with we wouldn't of had to worry about the comment that's not how we repair things.

Basically when you purchase from Meritage homes you are lied to. You are informed that their way is the only way. You have people working in your home that don't speak English nor do they understand the simple phrase clean up after yourself, please do it correctly. After several phone calls, several emails, our home is still not finished to our satisfaction nor do I believe it ever will be. We were told when we signed that all of these issues would be addressed and taken care of within 30 days. We are going on seven months and I still cannot decorate my home because of all of the blue marking tape. If you are purchasing a home look elsewhere. Do not purchase a Meritage home.

So at the end of April 2013, still within the warranty limit, I emailed the Meritage Homes-DFW Warranty Department. I told them the floor was moving up. I also told them I was concerned about the water leaking as the reason. Meritage Homes did respond to me immediately. Some people came to my house. I showed the people where the hardwood floor was moving up. The people, without using any tools, just by visual observation, said that there was no leaking. They said that if there was any leaking, the drywall near the problematic hardwood floor area would turn to black.

Since Meritage Homes determined there was no leaking, there was not much I could ask them to fix. We just kept being very careful about using water in the kitchen. I even sealed the line where the countertop and the backsplash join. However our hardwood floor just gets worse with more boards moving up. I cannot see any water, on the floor or under the kitchen sink.

Yesterday morning, I decided to remove one baseboard near the problematic hardwood floor. As soon as I remove the baseboard, I saw water coming out. Yesterday morning, I emailed Meritage Homes-DFW Warranty Department immediately after using the same email chain when I first reported the floor moving up issue to them in April 2013. I have not got any email response back from them. Yesterday morning, I also called Meritage Homes-DFW Warranty Department (972-580-6338) and left a voice message. I have not received any call back from them.

This morning, I called Meritage Homes-DFW Warranty Department manager Tom (**) and left a message for him. Tom called me back not long after. Tom asked me to text him my home address and some photos, and said he would send someone over to take a look. I texted everything he asked for to him. However, I have not received any calls from him since noon. I called Tom again this afternoon and left him another voice message.

It has been two whole days without having anyone from Meritage Homes to come out to take a look of the leaking. Because it is leaking, we have stopped using the kitchen water. Now we have to wash dishes and prepare food in our tiny laundry room. Life becomes very miserable. We just hope Meritage Homes can come out, take a look, and help to fix the leaking issue. I am writing this up to look for help. For any of you out there, if you have any ideas how we can get help, please let me know. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

He maintained this stance until we recorded a person laying tile in the neighborhood looking at it, stating that there would be problems later if a membrane were not put down first and that it was not standard in this neighborhood for a membrane to be laid. Then the construction manager advised that they would be doing a membrane. This should've been the response from the start. If it had been, our concerns would've been laid to rest immediately instead of making us question the quality of the home and the construction manager's competence.

When we noted that the shower stall in the master bath had been framed several inches smaller than what was in the model (and knowing this wasn't something listed as an option), the construction manager advised that what was done was wrong and would be even smaller after it was corrected to match the plans for the house. A difference of six inches smaller. When we questioned why it was different from the model we were shown, we were told 'the plans changed', that they could not match the model because it would 'compromise the integrity of the slab'.

When asked why it would affect the integrity of the slab in our home but not the model, we were advised "... the model was poured that way with the slab just like yours. However the difference is that we would have to chip and cut out the additional six inches on your slab which will negatively affect the slab..." Then the construction manager advised they could cut it out and re-do that section but the window would be off center and the slab would no longer be monolithic in that area and to let them know if we wanted to proceed. After consulting other professionals in the building industry who advised that it just needed to be anchored and inspected properly, we advised that we were okay with this change and to proceed with it.

The construction manager then advised that they 'were not going to honor the request' and the "size of the shower is not an error and is according to plan and we are not going to change it to match the model". We were never provided plans with dimensions for the spec home and had no reason to believe it would differ from the model in ways that have nothing to do with options. Really can't help but wonder what other surprises are in store for us over the next months.

I have not been able to have a normal life cause of construction crew in and out of my house for the past one year. I had to take time off my work to meet these people for which I have lost time, wages, and been in hardship due to slow progress over a year now. My life has been miserable and under lot of stress caused by this developer. After trying to get resolution for almost one year, last week I met with their representative at my house during which I highlighted few of my major concerns and wanted to resolve the issues. I just got their response in which they totally declined to do anything further. At the time of purchase Meritage Homes must have known that that they will be building a new housing in my backyard and a Public School but that was not disclosed to me. Had I known that I would have NEVER bought this house.

Then they shorted me 1250 square footage of my lot as they had community wall there of which I did not know and found out later during design selection it was too late then. When I complained about it they tried to compensate a small amount and on the total house price. I was not happy with it and they got me in a fix and I could not do anything about it. I kept asking them for one year and they finally replied and declined to compensate any further. This developer has taken advantage of my situation and left me helpless.

Secondly, I wanted privacy, so purchased a corner lot. I had to pay extra $15k for it. Four months later the developer started to build another community right in my backyard. There used to be nice tall nature trees and now they are gone and it is a flat ground. My privacy is gone. The next community can see right in my living room. The privacy wall which is there does not give privacy and it is not tall enough.

The worst of all, the entrance to this community is right in front of my living room. That means all the traffic going in and out will look inside my house and especially at night time the lights will beam in my living room. This has caused a tremendous stress on me. I have lost the privacy, safety, and enjoyment of the house. I have asked the developer to raise the wall by few feet to provide me that peace and he has flatly refused it. The developer is more concerned about making money and taking advantage of the people providing cramped houses on top of each other. Taking away the joy of house from me.

Contractor hired by Meritage Homes founder of company. Shows up & disconnects the system costing homeowner, useless cannot be repaired. No parts stated needs to be replaced. Contractor provided work order on what needed to be done to replace system.. Lots of phone calls & e-mails between all this. Agreed to replace hot water tank & several other items. Refuses to replace the tree roof hot water panels. Like the hot water heater the whole system was paid to Meritage Homes who gladly took the money.

Final today customer service manager Meritage Homes will not replace three panels & will require a complete signed release form releasing them from all responsibility of the home solar system. Meritage Homes agreed to pay out of pocket cost of the warranty work which is a long warranty. But now after all these months they want a signed release before they will perform any work! Do other homeowners have? Or concerns over the solar hot water heating system.

Updated on 10/13/2017: Meritage Homes sold homeowners a PVT 2.5 kw Photovoltaic (electric) panels - per homeowners contract. Homeowner has found out through a Goodyear inspector that the system is ONLY a 1.4 kw SYSTEM... MERITAGE HOMES ACKNOWLEDGES that the system is only 1.4 kw photoelectric.

Now we finally moved into our Barrett plan and not disappointed. We love it. And we love location, school, neighbors and access to everything that might be needed by family with kids. It is awesome place and we do not have any issue with contraction, with closing process, with financing and escrow money. I mention all this because year ago it was my main concern when I found scary reviews about Meritage Homes. None of those issues been met in Winter Garden Florida in Watermark community.

I want to tell big thank to all those people involved in making our dream come true. Guys to all you (and sorry if someone won't be mentioned) our family saying thank you and all blessings: Shawn **, Tim, loan officer, closing agent, plumbers, roofers, flooring firms, painting contractors, lawn workers, cleaning company, windows and doors installers, electricians and everyone else who been involved. I live now here and see how hard your job is and how you trying to do your best and on time. Thousand thanks to all of you. Shawn ** was the first person we met in sales office and the person who made us trust Meritage Homes. Shawn, thanks for your patience and help.

Home owners beware. This looks like a shady operation. I am disappointed in the city of Lafayette that with the little amount of new construction in this area, in the Boulder Valley School District, that they would not do business with a more reputable business. I will be letting the city of Lafayette know. They better be prepared for lots of complaints about this project.

I searched for complaints about Meritage and found these horror stories about purchasing from them and the quality of the homes. Thanks to everyone who has commented here. My experience attempting to reach someone for information on the development along with these experiences have helped me avoid a HUGE mistake in trying to purchase/build a new home with them.

They asked for $5K of earnest money, so you can't do anything. When I asked in what case I can get my money back. They said only if I lost job or my loan don't get approved. Later after 2 months now they said "Changed your bricks but we will not compensate you anything." Such a poor and bad service. Never recommended to buy house from Meritage Builder.

There is not one thing on the internet about these apartments in Sierra Ridge Parker Colorado that ALL 240 UNITS ARE LOW INCOME, you had to go down to public records in Douglas County to get this information. The only reason we found out about this someone told us at a downtown Parker restaurant WHERE WE WERE HAVING LUNCH or we would of never FOUND OUT and moved in. We also wrote a letter to the CEO of Meritage who lives in Scottsdale Arizona STEVE HILTON, NO RESPONSE and the letter was sent certified and signed by Arlene **. I ask Mr. Crandall who makes the final decision in getting our 24,000 dollars earnest money and he said me.

Please, if you are considering buying a new home, use a realtor to represent you. There is typically no cost to the buyer to have an agent in a purchase if the home is listed for sale by a builder or real estate company. Also, make sure to monitor the build process at least weekly. Take photos. When the build is completed definitely hire a home inspector to make sure everything is installed and works safely. Follow along below.

My client, who I will refer to as ABC, signed a Meritage Homes sale agreement in August 2015. This nightmare lasted a full year and ABC was finally released and refunded in August 2016. Meritage built a defective structure and attempted to close on this, but our inspections prevented ABC from becoming the owner of an unsafe, defect-riddled property. But, to get to this point ABC spent thousands of dollars in inspection fees, a structural engineer, and an attorney. ABC was partially restored financially, but the emotional scars will last a long time. After the foundation was poured and the framing was up, the site superintendent performed the pre-drywall walk with the buyer and myself. At that time, we found damage done to the fiberglass bathtubs in the hall bath and the upstairs bath.

Holes were punched through the new fiberglass by framing members behind the tubs. The damage was subsequently patched (not replaced) and refinished on site. As the build continued we began photographing other defects and calling them out to the superintendent and sales agent. Their response was always the same; “it’s a process”, “you’ll love it when it’s done”. The build continued and many of these items remained unaddressed. We discovered the build “process” has allowed the builder to "cover up" underlying defects without correcting them. We generated a 55 item punch list and submitted that to the builder. Here are just some of the items discovered before they were “covered up”, not fixed:

The stairs leading to the second level were found to be over 1/2" out of level, side-to-side. The top stair was improperly supported and deflected under load. All the decorative crown and wainscot moldings were poorly set. Mitered joints were rough and crudely cut with no sanding or smoothing of any kind. Many moldings were not level or square. A 3-foot square hole was cut into the concrete basement floor to patch a broken drain pipe. The PVC pipe was spliced with rubber hose and clamps. The hole was later backfilled without moisture barrier, and not leveled with the adjacent floor. Carpet was then installed over these defects to hide them. The dip in the floor could still be felt under the carpet.

Also, all of the finished hardwood flooring, tile and carpet were not covered or protected in any way. Construction crews were observed using drywall mud, sanding walls and painting in the house over the floors and getting dust, mud and paint on these "new" materials. The granite countertop in the kitchen was installed improperly. The countertop was intended to rest partially on a knee wall and mostly on kitchen island base cabinets. The knee wall was built too tall so the countertop did not get any support on the base cabinets except for a stack of shims on the front edge of the cabinets. A 1/2" gap existed between the cabinets and countertop. No intermediate supports were provided at all. The superintendent said they would fix that, but they only nailed a piece of molding over the gap to hide the defect.

Our concerns mounted as the build continued, but none of the problems were being addressed, just covered up. We had several meetings on site with the agent and superintendent. Meritage had scheduled a closing for May 10th, 2016. On April 27th, I had a conference call with the superintendent and sales agent to point out the many issues (including finding an empty beer bottle in the house) prior to closing. They all apologized and assured me everything would be fixed. Two weeks later, they still were not. Consequently, the closing was postponed by the builder until May 27th, 2016. We scheduled a home inspection initially for May 6th. This too had to be rescheduled to May 20th, 2016, due to more builder delays. They assured us the home would be complete and ready to inspect on that date. It was not.

On May 12th I met with my client, and the superintendent at the house. We walked the rooms and pointed out the numerous defects. The superintendent marked many of the items with blue tape and promised to fix it all for us. It was at this time we picked up the beer bottle and handed it to the superintendent for removal. It was right after this meeting that the superintendent either quit or was fired. We couldn’t get a straight answer. A new superintendent was later assigned. On May 18th I again visited the home to spot-check progress for my client. On that date cleaning crews were working. Upon opening a kitchen island base cabinet door, I found another empty beer bottle. All of the flooring remained unprotected, so dust, paint and wet drywall mud had been dropped into the carpeting and on the hardwood flooring.

We had emailed the sales agent and area manager to insist they put some protection on the flooring, but there had been no action to do so. On May 20th we finally did perform the general home inspection. Our general home inspection revealed numerous functional defects and a significant structural defect in the sloping floor and sagging rear wall of the house over the walk-out basement. At that time this drop measured over 2" in eight feet. This prompted us to do an additional inspection. My buyer later brought in a structural engineer at her own cost to investigate further. Despite promises by the builder the home would be ready to inspect, they could not get a satisfactory pressure test on the gas line from the utility company, so the gas meter was not installed. Consequently, it was impossible to have gas appliances inspected by our inspector as planned.

We learned that the City on May 17th, 2016 also inspected the house in the builder's attempt to get a certificate of occupancy. That inspection also failed and the city's own report notes; "The home was not ready for final inspection." On May 23rd ABC, and I attended a "Customer Orientation" walk with the new site superintendent. During that walk through we discovered water in the basement. The superintendent indicated that the pressure-washer cleaning crew was there earlier and during washing the front porch, water leaked into the basement and damaged the insulation. The lack of proper flashing and water proofing on the front porch was one of the items on our deviations list and was also documented by the home inspector. It still had not been addressed. Worse, the builder added decorative columns and hand railings to the porch, which prevents opening the wall and siding to install the correct waterproofing.

During the May 23rd meeting, we pointed out the sloping floor defect to the new superintendent. He pulled up a copy of the original builder's plan and that is when we discovered the onsite construction personnel omitted a 2’ x 3’ concrete footing, two smaller footings and four 6x6 columns under the back wall of the house. So, the next day I went directly to the City planning department. I met with inspectors to discuss the permits for this house and the structural problems had we just discovered. They said they were unaware of the defect and would meet with the builder to find out what happened. They did say the superintendent was just there talking to them about another home with similar problems.

The City later informed me the remedy to fix the structural defect would be considered a modification to the existing plans since the structure was not built as designed. As such, they would not issue a certificate of occupancy until they certify the construction was done correctly. As of June 8th, 2016 the structure was not safe to occupy. If we had closed earlier on this build without proper inspections my client would certainly be in harm's way. We contend this demonstrates negligence and gross incompetence on the part of Meritage Homes. Worse, if my client had bought the property it would be her obligation to disclose the defects when she sold it. This would have destroyed her ability to preserve its value.

On May 27th, 2016 my client’s structural inspection was performed, which was incidentally, on the date of the second, missed closing date. The structural report revealed fundamental defects in floor supports and roof trusses which partly attributed to the warped ceiling and sloping floor. Also, the rear deck (over 12 feet high) was improperly attached to the house without bolts as the building code specified. That omission could have seriously injured many people if it the deck pulled away and collapsed during a family gathering. On June 1st, 2016 the onsite sales agent sent out an email advising ABC and myself that the new (third) closing was scheduled for June 17th, 2016. She stated that her Area Manager assured her he would definitely have the house ready to close on that date.

To complicate the matter, my client’s rate-lock on financing expired due to builder delays. If this deal was to go forward the financing would have had to be revised at additional cost to my client. As of June 8th, 2016, still nothing had been done to address the many issues that required correction at this address. It is abundantly clear that this builder is unresponsive, and either unwilling or unable to build homes competently. We assert they simply don’t care. As a result, my client had lost any confidence in this builder and wished to cancel any plan to purchase this property. An attorney was retained. The inspection reports, a mutual release and letter indicating my client intended to cancel her purchase were sent to the builder directly from the attorney.

Clearly, Meritage did not intend to cooperate and dragged out this process. It took over two months for my client to receive a signed release, a refund of deposit and options money. My client did not receive any money to cover inspections or attorney fees, however. Without an attorney on the case, we believe we still would not have a resolution to this flawed transaction. This home was recently listed by the builder for sale in our local MLS. No disclosures will be provided by the builder because it is considered a “New Home” and as such they are not required to disclose problems since no one has ever occupied the property, even though the builder is well aware of all the defects we discovered as documented through inspections. They were provided copies of all inspection reports. Many of the defects still exist and are simply covered up.

There is a significant ethical problem here. If you want a brand-new home, don’t get caught up in the rush. Ask for a copy of the sales agreement. Study it. Have an attorney study it. If the agreement is over 50 pages long and gives the buyer no protections, like the one Meritage uses, someone is going to get hurt. Ask an existing homeowner in the neighborhood how they we treated in their purchase. Be very careful! Don’t wade into this swamp without abundant caution. Far better if you don’t do it at all! Buyers beware!

My insurance company sent a portion of the Nibco plumbing for testing with an independent 3rd party who concluded the plumbing was faulty. Even after this Nibco and Meritage declined to make this right. I am in the middle of my 4th water leak right now and am out of pocket thousands of dollars including my deductible. Meritage should do what is right and replace my plumbing and they have refused to even make repairs where the loss occurred. No quality plumbing should spring leaks 4 different times in 4 different places within 24 months. I have had the water pressure checked and all is fine.

I don't have an extra $5K to give to anyone and I don't like to follow up behind those who claim to be professionals. It sounds like this company is a train wreck and continually pocketing people's hard earned money, giving false hope, doing substandard work, not taking responsibility for their product and avoiding their customers when their product defects. Why have a warranty if no one will answer the phone to honor it. Thank you again and I will pursue my search elsewhere and with a reputable company.

Original Review: June 1, 2016

Bought a home from Meritage Homes in Oct 2013. Water penetrates through bath tiles and grouts. Opened one tile and also the opposite drywall. OMG. Horrible job. There is NO moisture barrier. Regular sheetrock is used instead of cement backerboard.

I even got a letter from Meritage Vice Presidents to call them directly for non-resolved issues. They did not pick up their phones and did not call me back even after I left them voicemails. Even the construction manager did not bother to call me back until I requested to cancel the deal. Their sales associate is a big liar since he kept me coming back and forth and kept delaying the home repairs to force me to close and lied about keeping the earnest money deposit.

When I asked him "provide me something in writing on who decided to keep the earnest money", he did not do so which seems that he individually decided to keep the earnest money. The construction guy mentioned that he would get everything fixed before closing, but it did not happen. When I went to the sales office to work the issues, the same guy who is the construction supervisor was sleeping in the office and his boots were laid outside the room he was sleeping in with a closed door. What a cheap treatment to home buyers. I hated the home afterwards. They suck with every piece of detail from buying to fixing and preparing the house to warranty across the board. I am glad that I did not buy this Meritage home.

After signing the contract, we discovered a health-related emergency and contacted Meritage if it's possible to return our earnest money so that we could focus on the treatment and not worry about the construction. This was on 25th day after signing the contract. We weren't even explicitly made aware of the earnest period while signing the contract. They straight away said NO. After much discussions with the VP, director, etc., it was proved that they don't care. So we asked them to continue the construction and then they said we need to pay $5K more earnest money to be on the contract, to which we didn't agree. And last week we received an email saying our contract is VOIDED. How could this happen without our consent?

If you look at the contract they have a section where Meritage can ‘unilaterally terminate’ the contract and keep your portion of the ‘options earnest money’. That means they cancel the contract and keep some of your money, the amount you have in ‘options earnest money’ and you have no say in it. I recommend that you use an experienced professional real estate agent when dealing with Meritage. It will not change the price you pay for the house. Put into our budget at your expense to do all of these before you close: 1. Engineering report from a licensed structural engineer pre insulation for framing, truss, fireplace and foundation. 2. Survey before you close, check the lot size and setbacks from the property line. 3. Home inspection in great detail and do not back off the smallest issue issues.

If you think the building inspectors will catch very much you are mistaken. They spend very little time on a job site from foundation being poured to the final CO. They will miss health, safety and, structural issues. I have proven that. The sales staff do not always know the details of their product. Changes from the head office either do not get to sales staff or they do not look at them. Therefore about 10% of what they tell you will be incorrect when you sign the contract. I will stress that every single detail you write down in the contract in very great detail. The building staff do not always communicate with the sales staff. So what you get in contract may not always make it to the building staff. The building staff goal is to build fast and as cheap as possible. To the credit of the building staff they will sometimes be flexible and help you with minor changes.

The job site supervisor may have multiple subdivisions to oversee and they do have a lot meetings and training. Assume very little actual supervision of your house being built. The work is really managed by the cheapest sub contractors they can find. If you go to the area job site supervisor their job is to gloss over the issues and try to make you feel good but then not really deliver. Sort of like a professional politician. I would strongly encourage you to go by the job site at least twice a week to see what is actually being built. Take lots of pictures for documentation, email several times a week questions and concerns, keep the emails. This is critical to an acceptable house when it is being framed, trusses installed and OSB being put up. Once the house insulated (especially with spray foam insulation) a lot of mistakes can be covered up. Once the sheet rock goes up even more mistakes can be covered up.

Meritage can do a good finish job for the ‘eye candy’ on the house but it may have ‘bad bones’ underneath. Details of our experience: Concrete foundation not poured correctly resulting in 3 cuts, of 14, 11 and 2 feet long. This was in a floor plan that was the most common one in the neighborhood. Vapor barrier from concrete to framing missing on about 25% of the exterior walls. The straps set into the concrete foundation that hold the framing to the foundation were often not nailed, covered over by framing, and when nailed not done so correctly. Our engineer had to point this out. The correction was installing concrete anchor bolts to the concrete and that was done. I had to ask them twice to tighten the nuts as many were loose. Basically they would build a house that is not properly attached to the foundation. It vigorously defended by the management as a good job.

Framing 2x4, 2x6 very poor quality. Ours was way below average quality comparing it to other houses under construction by Meritage in the same subdivision. Wood was moldy, split, rotten, holes and bark areas exceeding ½ the board width, about 25% of the wood was bad. Roof trusses were 2x4’s (as cheap as you can get by with). They were not all properly cross braced. Trusses had holes in them that you could put your thumb through, numerous trusses were split and broken. Numerous metal plates that are stamped on the truss joints were busted loose. Roof decking was missing H clips, hurricane straps were missing, OSB siding had holes the holes of over 2 feet wide, lots of nails missed into wall studs. Wall studs were not always on 16inch centers anywhere for 14 to 20 inch centers. Often the studs were not plumb.

When I asked for additional 2x4 to reinforce the piece on any exterior or interior wall to firm up the walls. I had to push very hard for every single 2x4. It was a battle. Some of the interior 2x4 studs I could twist and easily remove with my weak hand, one nail top and bottom. Trim fascia boards had gaps exceeding ½ inch between the boards they were going to caulk. Same fascia boards were not straight. Gaps in concrete siding were often greater than ¼ of an inch. Most light switches and plugs were crooked which is a result of bad lumber and studs not straight. Meritage building management called this a well-built home and was planning on putting up spray foam to cover the trusses and framing. We had the structural engineer in first. A lot of bad wood, safety issues and workmanship would have been covered up.

I was wise on our part to bring in a structural engineer. The engineer pointed out that the fire box for the fireplace was too close to the wood framing per the manufacture requirement in bold print on the fire box. The improper installation of the fire box was fire hazard and noted in the engineering report. Meritage refused to correct it. It was a very challenging time getting Meritage to fix anything at all even when we presented them with a report from a structural engineer with pictures and documentation. Much of the framing and truss issues could have been resolved with a couple of competent carpenters and good lumber.

Some but not even half of these issues were resolved after weeks of heated discussion and us following up repeatedly. We did seek to get our earnest money back and it will take you over a month to get any of it back. They were very uncooperative and had numerous delays. I would not recommend Meritage to build a house to anyone. If Meritage says you get your money back in two weeks count on a month with you constantly pushing them for your money back. This occurred in Georgia, just north of Atlanta…

Original Review: March 28, 2016

My wife and I were really excited about buying a home in Waters Edge and we chose the Greenbrier. We went out and took out about $5000 from our retirement to get into our dream home. The market has become very difficult to sell our home and buy this new one. I was under the assumption we were in a contingency that would protect our 5k. We were really banking on taking the profit and getting into this nice one. We have called and asked about our deposit and they stated that there is no way to get back any earnest money at this point. My wife was in tears about losing the money this was money that her father left her before he passed and now it's been taken horribly by Meritage with no hope of return. I would never recommend this builder to anyone. I also had a friend that lives in one now and he is having a hard time getting things fixed. Has only lived in it 2 months.

We have so many gaps in our counters, floors, trim that it's ridiculous. We paid a pretty penny to have the counters, floors etc, upgraded but its looks like a 'bad Harry homeowner' did it - not a professional. If you buy a house from Meritage be prepared to go over your house with a fine tooth comb - then have to accept their sub-par work. That is the Meritage way.

I had my house built 1995 by (Ray Ellison) KB homes and NEVER had this problem. She grew up in this home where we flushed these same products... WITH NO PROBLEMS!!! This is a faulty plumbing problem that needs to be fixed!!! It's a shame her first home has to be a nightmare. But you can bet this builder/owner's children's houses don't have this PROBLEM!!! Society wants to know why the young folks are so angry. No matter how they try to do good, there is always companies out here like this short changing them. SHAME ON YOU!!!

I responded with requesting a formal letter stating that these cracks are cosmetic and normal in nature since we are planning to sell our house in the near future and do not want to be informed by an independent inspector that we do indeed have foundation issues which would diminish the value of our property. This is how he responded: "Per the inspection of the house we found that the cracking is not considered structural and is well within our tolerances. If you would like to get another opinion you are more than welcome to hire a licensed engineer to come out and evaluate this for you."

I didn't mention anything about getting a second opinion, I just requested a letter stating their findings. This requests kept going back and forth for the last three weeks. It went to the Area Construction Manager, who also refused to send us a letter stating their findings, signed by Meritage Homes. Finally, I received another email: "As discussed, we don't have a process for that. You're welcome to keep my email as a reference if you need that for any purpose. Thank you."

Meritage Homes refuses to put their findings in writing because they know they are wrong and there are actually foundation issues in our house that warrant repair. If they would send a letter stating the contrary, they could be liable even after their "warranty" expires. We have had issues with Meritage Homes from the beginning, however, we let it go because we deemed these issues not worth it. However, foundation issues are serious. I do NOT recommend this builder and will never use them again.

I declined the offer and now after scheduling a meeting with the warranty manager Tom ** who did not show nor call to say he could not make it, not a single member of the Meritage Corporate management team will contact us. Our home has a warranty. So we are now left with filing with our insurance and having them to take things from that point. First Texas Homes is building in my subdivision and they use rebar/wire mesh in the driveways; I took pictures to show them to Meritage on their Twitter but they decided to block my pictures of my issues since they will not respond. My opinion is if you are truly looking to build a home re-evaluate Meritage and try another builder, even ask someone who has issues with them how Meritage has handled/mishandled everything from the building of to the complaint for a warranty repair.

Of course no one returned to finish our roof, and more rain was scheduled for 11-21-15. I promptly called our warranty manager to notify him that nobody had returned to finish our roof, and I was concerned as rain was in the forecast. He informed me he would try and contact the roofers and get back to me. As of today, I have not heard from the construction/warranty manager or the roofers AND it poured down rain this past Saturday. There is not telling if more damage has been caused due to them not completing the work prior to the last round of rain.

The roof issues are also requiring removal and repair of drywall on our ceiling where the water came in. Because my roof has not been finished I had to cancel the drywall company that was scheduled to repair the ceiling on 11-20-15. The only communication I receive from a Meritage representative is at my initiation, and there is zero level of concern about our roofing issue. The best part is that there are NUMEROUS Meritage homeowners in my neighborhood who are experiencing roof issues (as reported on our neighborhood social media page).

I wonder why so many new Meritage homes that are in our neighborhood posted as available are not selling? Perhaps consumers are reading about the lack of customer and warranty service current home homeowners are receiving. Considering we have spent a month waiting for warranty repairs, received horrible communication, and customer service we have resolved ourselves that the work is not going to be completed under warranty. We are going to contract the work independently and pay for it because the amount of stress and frustration this WARRANTY work has caused is ridiculous. I have also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

The sad part here is that I am currently in a Meritage Home. It was a great home buying experience. We constantly spoke highly of our experience and made sure that we gave our Sales/Construction team high marks on their reviews. They were deserved based on their honesty and integrity to the process. That is what made us come back to you for this new home. This experience has ruined for us any future dealings with your company. As a Veteran, I will now recommend to other Vets to be wary of any dealings with your company. Shady tactics, being pushy during a review of what is in the home, "bait and switch", saying "I sent emails" when there is no record, lack of honesty and integrity. I know my not purchasing a home is not going to ruin your company. I am sure there are quality people in your organization, but as the saying goes "The ONE Awe' Crap wipes out the 10 Atta' Boys" applies in this situation. ‪#‎PowerOfSocialMedia‬

Last winter we had a sheet of ice covering the sidewalk for about 6 feet. He explained to me initially last winter it was because the landscaping was not finished. So in the spring when the landscaping was finished we still had the same problem. Now he explained it was because we are overwatering. It is coming to another winter and they still have not fixed the problem. The last thing he said was that the landscaping designed it to flow over the sidewalks like that so it wasn't his problem. I explained to him, "Just because you designed it that way doesn't make it right."

The other problem is we finished our landscaping in our backyard last fall and around Feb of last year we discovered that the metal in our window wells are rusting. This seems to be a common problem with all my neighbors. We sent in a warranty request and it was ignored. We started sending in the same request for about 2 months before I was finally contacted and told that they would replace the window well but I was responsible for the damage for the deck and patio. He explained to me that I should not have built the deck so close to the back of the house. I asked him, "How would you build a deck of the patio doors then?" and he hung up on me. I have tried to contact them to date 17 times as to the status of the repair and they simply ignore the request. I have had to hire an attorney and we are preparing for arbitration to settle the matter.

It took 86-days to get the building permit from the City of Frisco. Meritage indicated, the elevation I selected had previous issues with the City. Meritage failed to disclose any prior issues they had with the City of Frisco. Once the City of Frisco issued the permit, Meritage took another 63-days just to get the T-Pole and PD Meter installed properly and approved by the City. During the 63-days I spent waiting for red tag issues to be resolved, 23 other homes were issued building permits and Meritage began the building process on their homes. Of the 23 homes that were issued building permits AFTER my lot, all homes have surpassed my home in the building process. Essentially, Meritage has systematically moved my home to the bottom of the list, when my home should be at the top of the list. (There are currently 24 homes on the list, with more being added regularly).

Meritage has offer to return my earnest deposit in full, however with home prices increasing over the 7-months Meritage has held my earnest deposit, I am unable to find a comparable home in my price point. Meritage is intentionally and systematically delaying the building of my home. I believe they are bias against me due to my race and/or the composition of my family unit. Litigation is being pursued. If anyone else out there experienced the same issues with Meritage, I encourage you to report to the Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity (HUD), you are not alone.

Next item to quit working was our air conditioner earlier this year. After submitting a work request, we had to wait 4 days for someone to finally show. Of course, being in south Texas it was already hot! The first thing the repairman asked me when he arrived was when did we buy the house. Told him it wasn't even 18 months. He's like, alright you're still covered. Now the latest issue is I now have roof shingles coming up. My wife submitted a work request. We were told there is only a one-year warranty on the roof! So now I have to go out and spend who knows how much money to fix the roof!

We had three serious car accident at my driveway. One time the car was fallen in the ditch, two times the car stuck between the ditch and driveway. It took the wrecker company 2 hours to bring it back. Right now The common law states that the building work had to be carried out safely using reasonable skill and care. Further, the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 states that any goods supplied as part of the contract and any materials used must be of satisfactory quality and safety. We opened the warranty request 7/31, and asked the builder Meritage Homes to fix it to add some block, like they did in the left side of driveway. Their customer care manager Wilson stopped by, but he refused to fix this issue. He stated that the house has been closed, and the driveway passed the building code. Nothing he can do it.

I consulted the building code information from the Department of Insurance NC Building and code department by phone and described my situation to them. I was told no building code for the driveway. If the accident happened due to design by builder, the builder has responsibility to fix it. I tried to escalate the issue to Meritage director via email a few times, no response back, and the last email was returned back due to my email blocked by them. We felt very dangerous. When Department of Insurance Building and code department we back our car and scared to fall in the ditch up every day. I request to fix this dangerous driveway ASAP to prevent any accident happened to my family.

My husband and father were enticed by this and knowing what they had heard about solar, figured this was a good way to go. So we bought the solar and had it installed while they were building the home. Fast forward to June when we moved here and closed on the house with solar intact. We noticed all the gadgets and water heaters in the garage so the manager for our site and the head guy from Sonray came out to explain to us what it all was and how it worked. Sonray rep couldn't express enough how much money we were going to save with solar and how little our bills would be. And here comes the issues. The first few months our utility bills were extremely high around $350 a month. People think for a two story home this size that's cheap. Well not when you ask the neighbors who have the same type of home with kids (we don't have small children that live in the home) and they are paying the same price as us.

We had two fans in the attic which one was for an all circulation fan and the other was an addition for the solar. I noticed that they were both running constantly and for two months kept trying to convince them that one of the reasons why our bills were high was both fans running 24/7. We finally convinced them we were right and they disconnected one. Next our bills started to drop a little but at the end of June we received our true up bill (which this was never explained to us) and much to our horror it was over $1200.00. The electric company explained to us that this was energy we used and didn't pay for and at the end of the year they take what we use, subtract any credits we have and then send us the balance to pay or they pay us the credit they owe us. So after that bill we didn't want to do that again and started paying an extra $50 a month on top of the small bill we would get.

The following year the bill was about 400 dollars cheaper. But we couldn't for the life of us figure why no matter what we did, we weren't ever seeing small bills especially at the end of the year. And all everyone kept telling us was we must be using a lot of electricity to have high bills. Fast forward to 2015 when our true up bill was $1500.00 I went in to Best Buy and there were two gentlemen there selling solar. I told them I already had solar on my home and it really to me wasn't worth the expense. Because from all I understood about Solar I thought the saving would be half of what we were spending. But because we had purchased it with the home it was tied in to our mortgage.

They looked up the system we had on Google Earth and said, "We can tell you exactly why you aren't saving more money. Despite all your efforts, the system they have on your home is not equipped for a two story home. It's only designed for a one. You almost have to have 16 to 18 panels on your home and you have 9". He said, "Check the homes in your neighborhood and see who has solar, what size, and how many panels." So we finally found the culprit. They sold us a system that wasn't equipped to give us the most for our money or save us energy. Kinda like trying to pour 2 cups of water into a 1 cup and make it all fit.

I contacted Sonray and told them this and they said for $9000 more they can install extra panels. I wrote Meritage a letter explaining this and telling them that I think they pushed a product on the customers without anyone explaining what you need for what size house and it was more for both companies to benefit of each other instead of the customer homebuyer truly benefiting of the product. I have yet to hear from anyone from Meritage except for a generic email, "We will get back to you." That was two weeks ago.

The design center is a freaking joke we spent another 50k to get the house to look nice. We spent $7000 on the home entertainment center/media. We have passed plumbing inspection but still no slab. The area manager said he can't get the contractor to come out because they are too busy with other jobs. What happened to customer care? I am about to hire a lawyer to request my money back for breach of contract. We have potential buyers on our home that we live in but we don't want to move into an apartment either. We especially don't want to move twice. The sale representative is great. She has done everything to help us with this nightmare. Sales person has even offered to move us into a spec home but it is nothing like the 4300 sq foot home we picked. We just celebrated one year of marriage and this was suppose to be a fun time in our marriage, (building this dream home).

We live 35 miles away and the drive across town is far with traffic. I am so fed up. If I could I change today I would have gone with my first selection of building with a true custom builder and not Meritage. They are horrible. How can a person purchase a $500,000.00 home and cannot get it built. We have pipes sticking out of the ground. I say Meritage Homes just give us our hard earned money back and we will gladly move to a better builder who stands behind their product. I will never refer my friends to this builder. Buyer beware.

Updated on 09/26/2015: It's been 7 months and still no slab. We have a race issue going on with Meritage Homes. We believe that our house is not being built because on our race. We have been told that they did not pass inspection with the city of Frisco for the third time. On our lot they put down forms and plumbing in April 2015. The concrete company quit. When the inspector came in it failed for leaking pipes. Meritage hired two other companies and inspection failed again Sept 17th 2015. Now we are told that they have to remove all the pipes and start over on the plumbing because they can't find the leaks. So we were told it would be this week, well it's Saturday a week later and no movement on the lot. I have spoke to the sales agent, the sales agent's manager, the two builders and the construction area manager and they have all played CYA. We get another empty promise that some day our home will be built.

At this point we will build it but we will not move into it. We will close some day . My husband and I have decided to build with another builder in the area. The price is so much more right now because of the new market for the same house. We currently own 5 other homes in other cities that are paid in full. Our plan was to give those homes to our children and grandchildren. One son already has moved into one of them. We still have another one to sale but we refuse to sale and have to move to an apt and rent because Meritage won't build our house. They lie and make promises, I get so tired of the lies.

We have decided to read the fine print of our contract and we know we will find a flaw in the contract. We will contact the proper housing authority. If this is what the owner of this company promotes, stay away. This is bad business folks. I work in customer service and my company is the largest bank in the world, they would have walked these people out the door weeks ago. Buyers look out. The sales staff did say they may consider looking into trying to get our money back (15,000.00). They don't get it folks, it not about the money.

It wasn’t until the construction started that things really got out of control. My wife went to the frame walk with the Superintendent, everything was ok building wise but our frame walk was delayed when the superintendent went on vacation for 2 weeks and the construction team was delayed without instructions. We let it slide since we know things get delayed from time to time. When it came time to doing the final walk through, the sales office called last minute to try to change the date. Keep in mind the final walk through was scheduled about 2-3 weeks prior (written notice to us from builder).

We moved our schedule around to accommodate the date and time of the walk through and were excited it was nearing the end. Our walk through was scheduled for a Wednesday May 13th and ** called Tuesday to try to move the date. Again, we had to move our schedule around to accommodate a change. My wife called her and told her it was frustrating to keep changing our schedules and that we would meet on the revised date to get it done but would not extend anymore. ** response was very rude: “I don’t think you guys are being very accommodating.”

Is this something you tell someone? You are supposed to be professional! This comment set my wife over the edge. We have been MORE THAN ACCOMMODATING, considering we bought dirt in November, was told our home would be done in March, having numerous delays and paperwork errors, and then being told the home would not be completed until MAY! She told us we also would not be able to close on the time given from builder since the meters PG&E were supposed to install were not installed.

At this point we didn’t believe her, as they were just trying to buy more time. My wife called PG&E and requested to get the information on the meter installation. Funny how it was installed on that day, but she lied and said it wasn’t to try to push out the move in by a week! The last irritating thing Meritage did was right before closing. They made everyone sign an addendum that would cost all buyers an additional tax from FATCO (I think it’s an additional $900 or so). Ridiculous! We can go on and on about everything else that happened, but wed be here all day!

Design Center: ** was very helpful. She was patient working with us in picking out the options for our home. The downside and major setback is the fact that they only let you choose from small sample sizes and not a lot to choose from. It was extremely hard to pick out the entire house based off of the small sample boards. They also charge a fortune for their upgrades! Hardwood Floors-$17000, carpet in bedrooms and stairs-$13000, subway tile backsplash $6000 (these are super cheap $1.84/sq.ft at HD), additional $4000+- for cabinets and reconfiguring of cabinets if you choose an upgraded appliance package another couple thousand.

Our upgrades were $50,000! What they DON'T TELL YOU until the end of the 8 hour appointment is that you cannot pay separate for the upgrades, that they MUST be financed with the home. Another surprise that they do not tell you until the end is that your selections are FINAL. If you wish to make a change you have to submit $500 (non-refundable) to get approval from the builder. They may or may not approve and you still lose the money. Preferred Lenders (MTH Mortage): MTH mortgage (AKA-iMortgage, Loandepot.com).

We originally started the pre-approval through MTH since they were the preferred lender. We also were getting a comparison through Wells Fargo. Since MTH only offers a 3045 rate lock, we leaned towards Wells Fargo with a 90 day rate lock (in case of additional delays as we figured there would be). We requested that a GFE (good faith estimate) be sent to us. They refused to send until we locked the rate with them. They provided an estimated statement for comparison with Wells Fargo.

The rates were good with MTH (better than Wells Fargo), so we locked. After reviewing the GFE and estimated sheets, we noticed that the origination charge for MTH was almost $12,000! Wells Fargo and other banks are around $1100. MTH, since they are the preferred lender, offered a $15,000 credit which really doesn’t end up being $15,000 since they charge a lot more in fees and any unused portion is lost. You cannot apply it anywhere else! Everything was smooth until the week of closing.

There were errors in our paperwork and we couldn’t reach anyone to get approval on making a change until it was too late. We were not able to close on the date scheduled because of the lack of communication and funding on their end. We had to pay the extra taxes for the extension for the 4 days until they were able to fund and close. Very frustrating! Almost all of our neighbors have had the same negative experience with MTH and only went with them because of the rate and the credit offered.

The home itself: The home is beautiful and the area is awesome. The options look great and the home is very nice so far. Only a few items to mention: Concrete in front yard is cracked in 2 areas, landscaping looks dead and sloppy, our fan in the master keeps running, the cable tech installed our cat5 wrong and the downstairs cable was punctured. **, the construction manager is great. He responds quickly and sent someone to fix the door handles, paint and fan. We are still finding little things here and there, but assume they will continue to get resolved.

Overall, this has caused so much stress and hassle dealing with Meritage and everyone involved. Buying a home should be a pleasant experience, not cause buyers to worry or fight for the right information when it is their job to provide CORRECT information and assist buyers! I'm sure you will be hearing several more complaints from unhappy home buyers!

I had never question about the "whole house" thing that she was saying also (silly me) and I realized that later. At some point, I think she was in a hurry to finish (mind you this is a whole day thing) and she must have thought that since I told her I had a budget, we did not go through some options and I got the "standard" thing like the 6x6 tiles in the bathroom. Anyways, to cut the story short, as soon as we left and I read the paperwork that we had signed and realized that there were some things on there that I needed to change (did I say that that this was stressful and overwhelming) and I was told it was too late and we had sign on the dotted line. We are talking Saturday 4pm.

We went to see our salesperson and he was busy, so after hanging around for 20 mins, we gave up. I tried calling on Monday again and was told the design lady and the sales person that it was too late. I think this is unfair and we should been given at least 24 hours to think about this. A whole house "stuff" in a few hours. There is nothing but dirt on our lot and most of the surrounding lots and the house is not going to be ready for another 6 months.

My kitchen sink underneath leaked and apparently had issues as well because the floor boards were messed up - I did not know until after purchasing. They came to fix it and claimed it was fixed. I believe it too is a defect. I had to pay a plumber to fix it and replace the faucet. The tile they put here is bulked. I also believe that all my windows leak. The outside foundation is bad which Texas Windstorm said probably caused the windows to leak.

One of my air condition unit just went out (downstairs unit). I only been in this house 7 years. The home warranty supposed to be 10 years. The Trane company says I don't exist and there is no coverage. I am so upset. I have never ever been so unhappy and hate that I ever purchased a Meritage Home. I supposed to have wood blinds in the house - I did not get that either. Please please add me to the lawsuit. They switched my finance company to Chase after purchasing the home which raised my note $400. I told them I could not afford a house note over $1200 a month. I am going to try a sale my house. I have email over and over and no one will respond. Texas Windstorm told me they supposed to fix whatever issues because I am covered by Meritage for 10 years. They told me to not give up. Please help!!! Please add me to the lawsuit against this builder.

I had 3 different people we dealt with, and they all asked for the same documents; no one knows what the other one is doing over there. Now, they have our earnest money since October of 2014, and it is now the last day of March 2015 and we still have not received our money. Our Sales consultant swears she never receives our signed signature for the cancellation, and I know that is not true because I always ask for a read receipt and save that in a folder as well. I call to ask for someone in Corporate and they said, "Work with our Sales Consultant." which we did, and still nothing. Do NOT trust them.... They do not stick by their words, and no one knows what the other person is doing.

I do not understand why they use dangerously cheap construction methods. Why would a sparingly used ceiling fan fall down just after 7 years of use? Naturally, I grew suspicious of other hanging fixtures in my house. When asked if they could schedule an inspection for the remaining fixtures, they just will not respond. I am sick and tired of their practices. I was lucky that my kid's life was saved. This is my advise to those people who are looking to buy one of their homes - Go ahead and buy if you plan to sell it in 7 years. Because during my 7th year, the fan almost killed my daughter.

I received email at 10:23 pm advising my quote for closing was 2300.00 off. And if I did not bring it they would delay my closing by 72 hours. I was closing the next day and my bank is located 75 miles away. Carefree title is a joke and has awful customer service. At closing I was directed to remove my hat because she could not tell if it was really me on the driver’s license?? She was really difficult and then demanded I fill out survey before I left. I advised her I would not and she walked out and left me for 30 minutes. I had to track her down to get my keys. But not all is lost. My foreman ** was great, too bad Meritage treats their employees worse than its customers. And both he and ** have moved on to better things.

The only way to get these guys to do anything Is to stay on top of them. I came by every day and held them accountable. They finally got tired of me calling and stopping by and they did what they should have done in the first place - build my house right and on time. My warranty issues have been resolved so far but my one year is up and I have cracked tiles. I would not recommend Meritage. They are nice until they get your money and then its downhill and they never make a mistake. You will be blamed for everything that goes wrong. Good luck, pack a lunch and a sedative if you buy from Meritage.

Meritage Homes scheduled a closing date for the property I am purchasing on December 31, 2014 without informing me of the closing date. It was mere coincidence I found out about the closing date by calling the sales agent to ask for a status update. I later found out they have been sending information (closing, initial disclosures, and my SSN) to a wrong email address.

First walk through was scheduled on the December 30th, only one day ahead of closing. Upon visiting the property for the walk through, I discovered the property was not ready for closing: carpet was not fully installed, missing grout, unpainted door frames, paint/grout on splatter tiles and wood, etc. They could not deliver the home on the closing date they had set. This cost me one week of work and travel expenses. Meritage homes offered no compensation, not even an apology.

Almost one month later, Meritage Homes scheduled a closing date on January 28, 2015 and gave me a one week notice. Due to work, I was not able to arrange time off and make travel arrangements for the new closing date. It was again brought up to Meritage Homes that I am an out of town buyer, and requested for a closing date the week after. I was denied that request. I made an effort to have the issue escalated many times to plead my case. We received no response by email and no return calls from the regional manager or the director of finance. I managed to close on the home a few days later with a penalty fee of $1250. I'm being penalized for 4 business days, even asking for leniency so many times. They should penalize themselves for delivering my home a month later than promised.

I have made attempts to email and made phone calls to regional manager/director. I've only been able to leave voicemails. I called and asked the staff if he was in office. Their staff confirmed he's in office, but refused to transfer me to his line. They did not even give me the chance to plead my case. I called corporate and received the same treatment. All of my inquiries and escalation falls on deaf ears. Dealing with Meritage Homes have left me frustrated at the results in multiple occasions. Go with another builder.

After moving in I noticed that tile floors were loud when dog walked on them. Discovered that mastic did not adhere to tiles because it was dry when the tiles were laid. I entered a warranty ticket and this is when the fun started. After several calls and emails, I was told that they couldn't find the tile. I was told that there were tile in the attic, we couldn't find it. The exact color of the tile was relocatable, so I had to have 11 tiles installed in a color close to what was there. Of course I wasn't happy about that because they were in the main area of the house.

Inside wall in 1/2 bath was wavy, I entered a warranty ticket, after calling several times, this was fixed the correct way. It was an inconvenience, that's all. Roofing nails on back side of the house were popping up, I entered a warranty ticket. This was fixed right away after I told them rain was on the way and if water got in my house I was going to sue them. Kitchen countertop was buckling, entered a warranty ticket, was told this was due to a defect in the design. Meritage was told by an engineer that this was a defect, but they submitted the plans anyway, why it was approved by the city I don't know. The problem was corrected by shoring up the countertop, adding additional braces and the bend in the countertop was sanded level. The vanity in master warped, Meritage was aware that the product warped but used it anyway. One of their managers told me he was trying to get Meritage to stop using these because he had to replace too many of them.

This was to be my forever home. After the recent passing of my husband I am trying to sell my home so I can return to my home state. I am running into problems because buyers do not want to deal with Meritage and their lack of attention to details and customer service. I wish I could sue them and make them buy back this house. I know these are minor issues and others have had major issues with their home. I should not have had any of these with a brand new home. In the event that I build again, I will not use MERITAGE. This is not to say that I would have better luck with another builder, but I can always hope.

How about you let the buyers know that it is standard to put carpet in the dining room. We even had a double sink in one of our bathroom and we did not sign for that either. We upgraded our countertop in the the kitchen as well, but somehow we ended up with the cheap ugly standard countertop. The worst thing is, she even remembered that we wanted the more expensive one. After back and forth of calling and long discussions about the carpet and countertop, they basically told us we have to hire somebody and do it ourselves. The customer service is terrible. After you get the keys and something is wrong, you're on your own. I wouldn't buy another house from them again. They will cover for each other and give you lame excuses. Military beware! They claim to work with the VA but can't answer one question that's presented to them.

We met with your rep Chuck on September 18, 2014. Once again Chuck gave us countless excuses as to why he feels we are being picky and that we would have to discuss many of our items with the original superintendent for the job site. He also stated that we did not buy a "Pulte or Shea Home". What does the 2 builders have to do with Meritage, they should have the same Customer Service right?? Again we were left wondering if someone was ever going to get back to us. Over a month from our initial visit with Chuck, I decided to send another email, I received a call from Roy, I went ahead and scheduled another walk thru for November 18th, it has been 48 days and we have not heard back from anyone from Meritage or your Customer Service Department.

As buyers we continue to be disappointed with the lack of communication, responsibility and dependability from your staff. I purchased a new home, a home your sales team informed me and my family we would be happy with. In turn we have lived in our house for over a year questioning our decision to purchase a Meritage Home. Since our purchase, there has been staff turn over from Rob, to Kevin ** and now Chuck. I no longer want to communicate with your Customer Service Staff, I'd like upper Management to work with me moving forward and to oversee my repairs or work with me and my family so we can hire someone to take care of the repairs at Meritage's cost.

If I see no action I think we are buyer should unite and come together and protest in front of their sales office! We all have similar experiences and should make our voices heard, they had no problem taking our money from us!!

Their "customer service manager" told me to get a report from a certified company, which I did to the tune of $600.00. I was told he would go to bat for me and get the floors replaced. There are 2 code violations. Well, here I am 18 months later STILL waiting for them to do the right thing. I have asked them to reimburse me for the upgraded amount. I believe that is MORE than fair considering my family can't walk barefoot on the floors without getting splinters in their feet! If they don't comply then I will be forced to take them to court.

There are good things about the house, it is a nice floor plan and is energy efficient but the bad makes it hard to focus on. When you pay $400,000.00 for a home you expect good workmanship. Needless to say, BUYER BEWARE!!!

This is where the fun starts. We made our appointment at the design center and the choices were limited. When it came to floors anything we liked that they showed was no longer offered. On top of that the entire area was covered in dust. We were allowed 2 hours to choose all the upgrades for our new home which we were spending nearly half a million dollars on.

After over a month ground was broken on our home and we were given an estimate of late September as a completion date. We were going to put our house on the market just prior to closing because my wife was pregnant and due around the time to close. We were told in June that we now had to sell our home prior to closing on the new home. This I found out was common but it was unknown to me.

To make a long story short we were never given a completion date so we decided to put our home on the market near the end of August. September came and we were then told mid October. October came and we were told mid November or early December.

There were so many issues with the build. We were beginning to regret our choice in going with Meritage. At the top of the stairs, the floor sloped down. We were told this was a design flaw and nothing could be done. I'm not even going to get into the other flaws with the home. Suffice it to say, my wife did a walk through in early December and the painting was mismatched because they apparently ran out of one color.

In the end we are still trying to sell our home. We missed the busy summer months due to their failure to communicate to us their requirements for loan approval in a timely manner. They have notified us that they are now putting the home on the market and will not be refunding our deposit. Keep in mind we were never approved or disapproved for the loan. We were given requirements that would lead to an approval, one being the sale of our home and we still have never been given a completion date although the house is finished to their standards.

We are now hiring a lawyer to recoup our deposit. The sales people are very impersonal and rude.

15) Carpet in front of the stairs is discolored.

Boy, I haven't gotten into my family's problems yet. Our family is about two months behind moving into our new home. That part is not really a big deal for us luckily. I will just say this, THANK GOD FOR THE NEW REPLACEMENT SUPERINTENDENT (MIKE). He is the only customer service, and the magician fixing all the madness! Thanks Mike for having a sensitivity chip and Major Help!

The real nightmare happened a few weeks before closing. They had a contractor cut a power line and took 3 weeks to get it taken care of. This delayed our appraisal and final inspection and caused fees, too. They should have pushed closing back and compensated us for the charges to extend our loan lock, but they assured us everything would be fine.

We did our walk through the week before closing, and there were major issues. It was very evident that the trim and paint crews did not take pride in their work. It was just MESSY. We expected more for a $360k house, but it looked like my dog did the trim. We marked places that needed repair. And the PM assured us they would be taken care of. We also learned that the Project Manager had 16 other properties he was solely in charge of. This explained a lot. The day before closing, we did another walk through. The issues were not fixed. We did not have an option to move closing. Our hands were tied. So we made a list and had the PM sign and commit to the list. We gave them an extra day AFTER closing to make the needed repairs.

When I walked in to our new home with the keys, I literally got tears in my eyes. They had not cleaned. The floors, counters, and sidewalks were filthy. The marking we left was removed, but the items marked were not repaired. There was paint dripped everywhere. There were visible scratches in the wood floor. There was a large dent in the front door of the built in double oven. And, the huge dumpster was still in our front yard. We contacted the builder, and got NO REPLY. We have called and emailed for 6 days, and have not heard back from the builder.

Besides the crappy cement work and cracked/chipped tile, you'll get missing caulk just about everywhere, scratched appliances, broken heating/air units, really bad interior/exterior paint, heaters & air conditioners that don't work, electrical problems, water leaks inside and out. The landscaping is awful; poorly placed cheap plants, not to mention the drainage issues on many of the lots. Whatever you do, don't pay for expensive upgrades with this builder. Have quality contractors come in after the fact to complete your floors and backsplashes/shower. Take the standard interior paint and have your house repainted later. Not worth what they charge, as their paint is very sloppy and cheap! Why pay Meritage to do sub-par work for exorbitant prices! Also, you will be paying property taxes on all those upgrades for the next 30 years. Meritage loves to spout that they're the top ten builder, well, the QUANTITY of homes built does not equal QUALITY and they're no doubt number 10 on that list. Buyer beware!

I have followed their protocol for filing a claim to begin the process. I was told that the field rep would be in contact with me in 1-2 business days. Well, after a week, I decided to send another email (documenting everything) and I was told they would reach out to the field rep and have him call me, which he did. He set up the appointment with me on 10/1/14. The first thing he said was, "you need to review your warranty paperwork (totally unsympathetic). You need to read what it states and you will see that we are not covering this."

I asked him for his Operations Manager's name and he could not tell me his full name. He could only give me his immediate supervisor's name. Later that day after my email into the office requesting to speak to the Ops Manager. I was contacted by none other than guess who, his immediate supervisor. Well, that phone conversation went NOWHERE! They all have the same script when dealing with customers. It's like they all go to a class to learn how NOT to deal with customers. I told him that wanted him to meet with me at my home to see the poor construction of my falling steps and planters.

I told him that I had 2 engineers tell me that Meritage didn't use the proper support when building this. They told that they used a compaction sand vs crushed concrete as a base and it has all washed away which has caused the cratering. They also stated that the rock planters are not anchored into the ground and that for the amount of dirt that is in them, the rock walls should have been made wider to support it.

The supervisor was very rude, and short with me. I asked him who his boss was? He gave me the VP name and said she would be calling me, BUT, she's gonna push it back to him and he's not gonna help me fix it. I explained to him that my neighbor (which has also filed a claim) has the same problems with his Monterey home. I'm not looking for a freebee, handout, or to take advantage of any business. I get it. I'm looking for someone to take some responsibility in this. Even if they met me half way on the repairs, I just need it fixed! Unfortunately, I could not get this far into the conversation with them as they cut me off. Buyers beware!!!

Leaky basements, plumbing, uneven floors mentioned in the other reviews are very true for majority of the houses. I have seen the construction a to z. They barely meet the city codes; they ensure that they meet the codes right around closing. A good house is much more than simply meeting the codes. Once you start living, you will notice the changes as mentioned by other reviewers. The water heater, appliance, basement issues, all will start popping one by one. And then you will invoke warranty. They will drag their feet till the warranty is about to be over. In 20-30% of the cases they will attempt fixing. By then you are angry.

This is nothing, only the beginning. You may want to go to the court but can't, courtesy, the waivers you signed in the contract (I think there is a class action lawsuit pending in California court). You will hire a good attorney and he will figure out what supersedes: the waiver or a law. If your attorney is really good, you will manage to win. Then too, Meritage can still profit and you lose monetarily because they have the waiver to buy your house back at sell price + upgrades you put in. Bottom line, still much less than the current market price.

If you invoke issues during inspection walk-throughs, they will say they will meet the code. Read between the lines; they will not fix it. If you show attitude, then they will simply ask you to walk off because there are more buyers ready to buy the property because their layout plans are attractive and models are impressive. If you have already committed the same mistake as me, that is, signing the contract, then the only way out without losing sleep or money is to sell the property asap. I was warned but didn't pay heed because thought that a minority of people will always complain. I was able to sell mine the same week as the litigation ended for no gain, may be a little loss because of the litigation cost. I lived there for 1.5 years, so will call it even from the monetary perspective, but you will never get back the emotional peace or time back. I managed it but it can have a cascading effect on career, family, etc.

After 4 months we had to have stucco repaired, paint fixed, floor fixed; all three toilet seats broke and had to be replaced; the rain monitor on the sprinkler system was broke. Soon after our toilet started to leak and flooded our bathroom. Had to have a new toilet put in and the floor replaced again. Cabinets started peeling, had to have a door replaced. A water pipe just started banging in the attic. The air conditioner was not hooked up right in the attic. Electrical was shorting out in the kitchen... Just awful craftsmanship... We wanted this to be our forever home but are terrified what the next year or two might hold after the warranty is up. We regret this purchase so much. We would never recommend Meritage to anyone, EVER!

1 of the 2 water heater was broken. The builder simply turned it off. We did not realize it was broken until 3 months later, because it took 15 minutes for the water to get warm, and we are constantly running out of hot water. We submitted a warranty request, and it took over 2 months to finally get it fixed. First time the technician showed up and did not have the part to repair it. Even though we sent them a photo showing the cracked control. Next scheduled appointment was missed, because the technician did not show up, and I wasted a vacation day for it. After the missed appointment, I waited 4 weeks with no one calling me back from the builder or plumbing company.

Finally, I had to submit another repair ticket to get them to come back again. Calls to our "warranty manager" went straight to voicemail, without any replies. Third time the technician brought the part, only to find something else was broken. After he told me it was fix, I asked him why the garage smelled like gas. He then brought out some soap water to test the connections, and found there was a leak. He even joked that I had good sense of smell. The level of negligence was shocking. If he left the valve leaking and I did not smell gas, the whole house could be destroyed. For that simple repair alone, I wasted 4 vacation days, and made over a dozen phone calls, sent at least as many emails.

Another example of shabby construction quality was the case of card board filler. One day, I notice there was a wide gap between my garage door frame and the brick wall. Between the crack was what looked like brown card board box, filled in with silicon calk. The gap was about 4 inches wide. Upon close inspection, it looks like a part of a card board box. Someone broke the box a a part, and stuck it in the crack, because the brick wall was crooked, and they could not align the frame properly. Last I checked, card board is not qualified as an external facing construction material, especially when not painted. That particular warranty request took 3 tries for them to get it looking reasonable. I still have a 4 inch gap, but now it is filled with silicon instead of card board. See the attached photo if you do not believe me.

The latest problem I have is the lack of usable electrical outlets outside the house. The builder decided to put both garage door openers and all of the garage outlets, as well as all the front, back and side outlets on a single 15 amp circuit. There are 12 dual receptacles on that single GFCI circuit. I could not use anything more than 5 AMP on those outlets without tripping the circuit. The builder's response was that it was common practice for them. They also claimed that because I bought a spec house, they are not responsible for it. They then tried to get me to pay for the same low quality electrical company to come out and add additional circuits. Right now I have a 5300 square foot house that could not even power outside Christmas lights.

Their tactic is to make the warranty repair process so painful, that people would just give up and not call them. If you are in the market for a new house in Texas, do yourself a favor and avoid Meritage Homes.

Shortly after that, the construction manager quit and the sales office was removed from the neighborhood. Just like that we were left with no help that was close by. We had to submit our documentation for our "1-year warranty repairs" online and were assigned a Trey ** as our warranty coordinator. Part of our submission was a report from a third party inspector documenting issues with pictures and citing code violations where applicable (oh yes, my brand new home was NOT up to code!). One of the main issues was an engineered roof brace that the contractors cut because they could not make it fit, apparently.

The initial visit with Trey was supposed to be where he inspected everything so that he could get the correct contractors out there to make the repairs. All he kept saying however, was that they are not responsible for that, this is the homeowner's responsibility to maintain, etc, etc. After an unreal amount of angry phone calls and emails, most of the items on my list were completed 3-4 months later. The one thing they would not do is give me dirt in my garden. I had a bed of sand which was a haven for weeds and had to be addressed on my dime! I also told them that I was having drainage issues on one side of my house and requested they put in drains like they had already done on the other side of my house. They sent the worst possible landscaper out to handle that and he completely butchered my lawn. It took a month for them to come back out and fix it and it actually looks worse than when they first installed the drains.

This Trey character has since been moved to another community and our new guy is named Keith. I now have an upstairs window that is somehow allowing bugs to get in, and I believe it was improperly installed and possibly has shifted in the high winds we are known to have here. Keith has requested that I send pictures and I did. I now have left 3 texts and 1 voice mail; none of which have been returned. My experience after closing was nothing short of horrific! Do not buy a home from here.

The entire time through this process, we were making sure that, if there was anything that happened with the lending process and we weren't approved, we would get our deposit back. The Rep was VERY clear that, other than our backing out entirely from the contract, we would get the deposit back no matter what. We, and our agent, were satisfied with this as it is also stated in the contract that, should the lender not approved us, we would get our deposit back, etc. The only time we would not be able to get the deposit back, according to this contract, states (and in poorly written legal jargon) that there is a 10 or 14 day window from the date of signing to formally cancel the contract without reason and have the deposit returned. After such time, only lender denial would allow the deposit to be refunded. So, we gave the Rep all of the documents that he said the lender would require at the time of signing the contract.

When the lender asked for additional documentation, we immediately sent over those documents. However, after two months, we still don't know whether or not we are "approved" with their lender (MTH Mortgage), and after several emails and phone calls, they were still unable to say yes or no. They just keep asking for more documentation. At this point, we're wondering what's going on. We call up the Meritage Rep at the sales office and he's saying everything is good and not to worry, we're going to close on time, etc., etc. However, next thing we know, the Rep is calling us to ask if they can send our docs to another lender who can try and "make the numbers work." Side note: These guys assume we don't work for a living and call in the middle of the day when we're in Board Meetings, etc. So, although we can step out to answer, the problem is, they want us to make HUGE decisions on the spot without much detail.

Anyway, we're confused since we hadn't known we weren't getting approved with their preferred lender, but we don't want to lose our deposit by saying "no," so we ok it and the second lender comes back, almost immediately, with a no. (FYI, if you're ever denied a loan with MTH, expect them to be extremely unprofessional and rude to you... and in email format...) You can imagine after so many months, we're kind of tired of the run around and just want the craziness to stop. So, our agent calls the Rep to draw up cancellation papers since we were denied and the Rep REFUSED!!!

Now, we have problems. Even our agent can't understand why they're refusing this since, according to their contract, we were in compliance and then denied the loan. They actually told her (us) that because we didn't cancel within that 2 week window, we lose the deposit and he won't be having us sign any cancellation papers. So, after several months of calling and emailing and texting, we finally get a hold of Rebecca ** of Meritage in Vacaville, who we're told is the person who can authorize a refund of our deposit.

After several phone calls with her yelling at us and basically, telling us we can't read and are stupid, and then hanging up on us several times, we were, finally, on February 26th of 2014 able to get her to stop yelling long enough to tell her that we were bringing in our attorney, but would prefer to not have to go into such a hassle filled deboggle over one couple’s deposit. Perhaps it scared her... I don't know, but she finally said she "doesn't normally do this, but she'll authorize it this one time" and that we should expect to receive it within 4 to 6 weeks, and then hung up on us, again. Our mistake was we actually believed her. It's the end of April and still no refund check. Oh, and surprise! Nobody is answering our phone calls or emails. Now, we have to get our attorney involved. I would not recommend this company or their lender to anyone looking for a home.

* House sat for 8 weeks untouched after framing and trades waiting to be dry walled and bricked even though the dry wall and brick had been here the whole 8 weeks.

*Framing of upstairs was done incorrectly and they didn't put walls in on the second floor. We caught the mistake and brought it to their attention. We were told they would fix it later. 1 week before closing it was fixed. If you have ever seen a patch job with drywall and spray texture, well that's what the second floor of our house looks like. Looks horrible!

*Every door knob in the house fell off and continues to do so.

*Upstairs sink has to be unused and we have to keep the drain shut at all times. It makes this horribly loud suction noise. Had it fixed once and still didn't solve the issue.

*Attic door installed backwards. We brought this up during closing and were told it had to be that way. They said code said it must stay that way. So code says that us not being able to access our attic is correct? The door just hits the wall! After walking through every model like ours, taking photos and fighting they are finally going to fix it to the correct way.

*We were told we needed to sign a new contract a few days before closing. I thought that was very strange and was told that they needed it back the next day. After reviewing it I realized they added on $3000 in fees and when I confronted them about it I was told that we needed to pay it. YOU NEVER HAVE TO SIGN A NEW CONTRACT! They were hoping we would not realize, but we did. Sneaky! Our agent threw a fit when she found out!

*Our house was used as a dumpster! Before our granite was installed on the island they used the inside of the island as a trash can. We were so scared that they were going to put the granite on before we could clean it, so we had to come every day. We pulled out water bottles, cans of beer, chicken bones, fast food bags and more. Imagine how that would smell a year later!

* Watch out when doing yard work! I have found cans, bottles, tons of nails, wood, and other construction material.

*All of our siding and brick is pulling away from each other allowing water in. This will be great down the road for mold!

As much as I am complaining at least we do not have the issues that all of our neighbors have! Flooding, sewer leakage in the homes, and mold. Advise, make sure you are on top of them! You should be contacted weekly about the progress of your home as per the contract.

Also the second story bath drain line was pierced during construction and was finished and was just found three weeks ago from this date of March 26, 2014 and we are still waiting on them to finish it. And we are having numerous electrical issues. And last they do not clean the constructions area so when they lay sod they lay it with brick wood and several items of building material under it. So from my experience look elsewhere because they are VERY SHADY.

Moving forward to current year, I am sitting watching TV & I hear cracking coming from the kitchen, as I walk to the kitchen it get louder & louder. I notice that the noise is coming from the kitchen tile & grout lines. I was able to physically watch as my tile grout cracked & tile uplift. I have since put in another claim, the warranty claim representative came again seeing the damages & stated, "The house is a high use area, we (home owners) did not maintenance the tiles, the cracked tiles are wear & tear for 10 year old house." I did tell him that the initial claim was placed a couple of years ago so this was not the first time Meritage has know of this issue.

During some of the screaming & conversation the representative also stated that they had used a tile company "M.B. Tile" who was doing the work around the time our house was being built. M.B. Tile was using a mastic or thinset for the flooring that could cause possible lifting, but his professional analysis is that the mastic use on our tile was done by another company. I disagreed & stated how do you know without paperwork or facts. The representative stated, "The community my house was built in used another company", but we were not able to locate in our Meritage paperwork who they used.

I'm assuming that Meritage has known about this issue for some time with other communities. They are not disclosing much information who is the ceramic tile supplier doing the work, out of 10 communities being built in the Meritage binder that was given to us at the time of purchase. I only saw 2 community which clearly stated the tile company name as the supplier/vendor list. I am under the impression that the work is being given to 3rd or 4th party suppliers & they did not want to disclose this information because they are cutting corners. I was able to find my limited 10 year warranty certificate & it expires later this year.

The flooring should be cover but Meritage refuses to accept the claim of faulty mastic causing tiles to uplift. I have not stopped on trying to get my claim approved but I have a gut the feeling that Meritage will not honor my claim because the warranty claim representative (Jim) refuses to acknowledge what is happening & will not sign off on the repairs. I will probably have to repair the entire flooring out of pocket because of Meritage's lack of customer advocate care post sale of the homes. I will probably sell this house & buy another home but will not considerate Meritage as a builder know what I know now.

I know that this is an huge problem because I have neighbors too are having the same kind of issues & Meritage is also giving them the same run around. Please learn from our experiences & stay away from this company. Put your money elsewhere, I have not even mention about the other stuff going on since buying this home. Beware consumers & be smart, the thought of a dream home may not be all that you expected if you choose a bad builder.

Our house is supposed to be a green house. Our electric bills in the summer run 400 dollars. Meritage would put a larger unit in our house. It took two years for them to repair the air conditioning duct because they were installed wrong. Several service call of tech fixing the problem and I had to call many times to get it fixed. They admitted one time the problem wasn't fixed. Now they won't call us back because the warranty has expired.

The house isn't wired right. We can't run Christmas lights outside without tripping as breaker. Their solution was to add additional outlets outside. That didn't fix the issue. We still have problems with the electric and Meritage sends people over to look and go nothing wrong. I still have parts of the house that never got a final coat of paint. Tub leaks, they came by twice to fix it. The back doors on the house aren't water proof. I hosed down the back porch last summer and had water leaked in. The site manager said they aren't water proof. On the outside of the house - there have been several issues with neighbors on my block. We were treated horribly and will never buy another Meritage home. Their own mortgage company raised our fixed payment loan for their budgeting mistakes. No one deserves to be treated like this.

October 1 there were high winds and the structure next to ours fell down, striking my home. These things happen, but Meritage did not notify me. 2 weeks later I have to contact them to ask what is going on. 6 weeks later they managed to get an engineer to look at the damage and recommend a fix. Beginning of November, and I'm on my third construction manager and they still insist that I will be in the house at the end of December. With a straight face nonetheless. In the last 40 days as I write this they have managed to install most of the plumbing, and most of the vent work.

As far as Customer Service goes, it has been atrocious. My salesperson was so bad I could not deal with them, due to fudging the truth. I then got the Director of Sales for the whole company as I was so enraged. But very little has changed, except he is better at tap dancing than the first guy. Called him today at 8, noon, and every half hour thereafter and get no response. So I'm left to wailing at message boards. And I paid for this....

In addition, due to their continual fudging on close dates my apartment lease ran out and I have had to move in with family. So not only is this a burden on my children who are in school, it is a burden on my extended family as well. Welcome to the Meritage experience!

I am dreading any major repairs that may crop up in the future because I am not sure that Meritage will fix them. I have read the issues that other people have suffered and continue to suffer in other parts of the country and I hope that we don't have the same issues in Mooreville, North Carolina. Come on, Meritage, get your acts together and stand behind your product! It is amazing that you have been in business as long as you have. Think twice before purchasing a home from Meritage.

After we signed off on the walk through, they decided to move the sewer access to the MIDDLE of the front lawn, right in line with our front door. Since it's a fluorescent color, it's the first thing that greets you when you drive up. When I asked why they moved it, they said their "engineer" had determined that was the best place. I interpreted the excuse to mean that they don't care and they don't want to put it back where it was. At least they were kind enough to replace the grass that had been driven over when they moved it (yeah they moved it AFTER putting the grass). There was clearly something about us they didn't like. They carpeted the stairs, but the carpet tacks they used are a bit too long and stab my toes if I'm not careful.

Hey Meritage: The toilet testers do not need to leave their fecal splatter for the new homeowners. There's nothing pleasant about going into your new home and having to clean the bathroom. They could have at least left a courtesy roll of toilet paper (I hope they had some to begin with!). They messed up the gas line (got dirt in it) so we did not have gas until they could clear it out and get the gas company to come out. We had a few days of cold showers and no stove.

We left our key with the main office so they could let the gas guy in. We left the key with them a bit longer because they promised to have the contractors look over some things pending from the walk through (that never happened). They let an electrician in our home, who left our lights on and left a flyer on our table. The item he was there to connect is still not connected. They didn't let us know he was coming; it's an unsettling feeling that someone was in your home messing with stuff and accomplishing nothing. I still wonder what he was doing in there? We closed late, but only by a couple of days.

I'll also mention the neighbor's houses: Neighbor to our right got the linoleum flooring, but it seems the builder tried to put the base boards on as though to leave room for tile? Even if that's the case, it's not straight. There's just a weird, uneven gap. Neighbor to our left: I haven't spoken to this neighbor, but I saw the crew put the spray foam insulation in his home then saw a dumpster full of it because they had to pull it all back out. I wouldn't be surprised if his insulation is still messed up!

These are all little things, especially compared to the nightmare stories that are out there, but if I wanted to worry about little details and pouring out time and money to fix stuff, I would not have bought a brand new home! There are a few pros: We were not expecting irrigation in the backyard, but we got it; it's ugly but at least it's there. We visited the job site and no one complained about us being there while they worked. Only the tile folks had anything to say about us being there (they shut the window on us).

We had a dream of new fully loaded home with high-end contemporary stuff but they play so much with us till we decided to go with standard option in almost everything except instructional options. On walk-through day, we detected lots of painting issues and issue with concrete blocks in front yard parking way. They told us they will fix all of the problems before move-in day but on move-in day lots of problems remain, same as before. They just changed concrete block on our move-in day and it caused lots of problems in our move. Just imagine you move in to your new home in Arizona's hottest days ~120 F and you can't move your truck into your garage...

In all the process of buying of our home, sale persons, managers from Meritage were agreed that these problem are related to Meritage not me and my wife but Higher managers always block or denied our mails and requests. We call one of higher managers, Shaun, for talking about our problems in new home and he scheduled some day. My wife and I take whole day off for meeting Shaun but on meeting day, Shaun didn't come. Other persons came to our home and they told us Shaun had a meeting and he couldn't come... What the ** = Meritage means waste your time.

After some arguing when they saw we are not happy with the situation they called Shaun and he came in less than a minute. I don't know what meeting can be end in less than minute ... Whatever... He talked with us. He accepted that they didn't do a good job and they will have a meeting with higher ^ 2 managers about doing our backyard for satisfying us. We accept the situation and after 5 weeks suspense, they come with big "No". Right now my wife and I are totally unsatisfied and unhappy So much so that if I can sell it today for good price so I don't lose lots of my money, I will do it right now. I had lots of problems that it's hard to write all of them in this review. Our friends also had water leaking and damage on their roof....

We finally got a closing date last week and with not nearly enough time to find another lender we get our appraisal. MTH (a part of Meritage) sends out one of their guys who conveniently left off MAJOR details such as buyer incentives, lot premiums, reasonable comps and came up with an appraisal that leaves us scrambling for $30k (this is on top of what we've paid in deposits and plan to close with). So now we are faced with nobody calling us back, not enough time to find another lender and potentially losing all of our deposits if we have to cancel the contract. What a joke of a company. Please, do yourself a favor and go to another builder.

Construction manager states it depends on which crew frames the house. Apparently they don't follow the blueprints? In our case we are missing architectural arches that they later confirmed should be in our plan - but they would not commit to correcting this unless we pushed our close date out (which was already done a few times) and even then they wouldn't confirm when they would be done. Bottom line, Meritage hopes you won't catch their errors and if you do, they will make your life miserable until you concede and let it slide. TALK ABOUT BUYER BEWARE. I could go on and on about all the mistakes in our home.

Our sales agent, REBECCA **, is a nightmare. She sold us the home and washed her hands of it. We contacted her several times to assist with items and she routinely told us it was not her job and she would not help (literally). To take it a step further she even sent our realtor nasty emails chock-full of name calling even. Unbelievable. Very unprofessional and disrespectful. The "design" process is a joke. They reversed selections we made in our bathrooms (put the opposite tiles, etc. in each bathroom), left out items we had picked (tile in our master closet) and later said they weren't paid for so they weren't included (but we picked them and thought they had been included!?), again - could go on and on.

There is also no walk through process at the end. Basically you take what you get. They will be working on your house WHILE YOU ARE CLOSING ON THE HOUSE. Kid you not, no opportunity to call anything out. And if you do - mark it with tape, call it out and the tape will be removed and not fixed... over and over and over again. Bottom line - HAVE YOUR HOUSE BUILT BY ANY OTHER COMPANY, has to be better than Meritage! We have been in the house for a few weeks and find new things every day. I have people scheduled every single day to come in and "fix" something. Very time consuming and inconvenient. You have to harp on Meritage to do anything, so sick of it. Meritage turned something that should be a happy process into a really horrible, angry experience. I will continue to voice this to anyone that will listen so that other people will be spared this venture (one star is far too generous for this company)!

For example, we had some holes and scratches in our wood floor, and the repairman they sent fixed it with a brown Sharpee pen and some wood putty which came off after one washing. Our neighbor had a leaky roof, and they showed up and repaired it with some silicone. Another neighbor had bad tiles that they refused to fix. We have been here two summers, and the air conditioning broke down two years in a row during heatwaves. If you want a house that looks great for a few months, Meritage is the right builder for you. If you want quality, look somewhere else.

They then told us, "Not to worry, we have other lenders we work with and they can get you your loan." First thing the second lender told us was he would not honor the lower interest rate we locked on our pre-approved loan. This is a classic Bait and Switch. Don't be a victim of this shady company! Interest rates are now in the 4.1% and we have lost the opportunity to buy a house at the low rates that were current when we started. We have canceled our purchase with this company.

My buyers went for their final walk through and notice some stress cracks in the patio area. Upon further investigation and inside information from friends in the neighborhood, there were serious issues with the soil and potential sink hole. Meritage executives spent the next 8 months jerking us around and lying to the buyers and myself. Needless to say, the deal finally fell apart when the buyers had enough. They walked away from the home and Meritage sold it in a few weeks for $40k more than where my buyer had it contracted. They won in their minds, but they royally screwed my buyers. Their company is much like this situation - all may look good on the surface but be very weary of what lies beneath!!!

Original Review: May 3, 2013

We are in the process of building our home and wanted to share our experience with others. Started out great! Great price for a great home. The sales staff at the Cypress Park location is amazing! The issues came up with the price and upgrades. We were shown several inventory homes and price lists of the upgrades in each were given to us from each home. The Dylan (which was the model we are building) was one of the inventory homes. We based all of our pricing for the home off of this sheet, which after the design appointment we found out was completely incorrect and in fact we were give the wrong price sheet. So a $187k base price was now $35k higher.

I wish I would have known what was included and not, and the general pricing for items before we signed paperwork. I did try to get a price list and was told they do not give those out. I was also told I could not go to check out their options at the design center until I was under contract. So your earnest money will be lost. The homes do not come with gutters, grass, patio, sprinklers, alarms, ceiling fans and they only put cable/phone in 3 rooms (family, master and office. To add more is min $1,300). Please know that the standard carpet, granite, tile and cabinets are pretty bad, but we did find a granite and carpet that will work. Here is a list of option pricing for our model:

Back splash: These are priced very reasonably and even for something custom it is under $500

Moral of the story: Ask a lot of questions and double check what they tell you, and get everything in writing. They will not budge after they have your signed contract.

Over the next couple of years, the damage got worse. My tile floor is cracked all the way through the kitchen, down the hallway and in the bathroom. Then I noticed a crack on the outside on the foundation. I called the builder. They sent another guy out. He measured the crack. It was less than 1/4 of an inch, so he claimed it was not a foundation issue. Then he crawled on his hands and knees throughout my kitchen and hallway to act as if he were making an official assessment of the floor/foundation.

By now, I also had a crack in my granite counter top. The builder claimed this was normal wear and tear on tile and granite and that it was not covered by my warranty. I told him that I thought it was the foundation; he disagreed. Since then, I have had multiple foundation companies come out to my house to assess the situation. Every one of them has said, "Yes, you have a foundation problem and it is only going to get worse." Two of them said they could tell the house is leaning while in my kitchen. When they completed the measurements, the house was off by 4 inches. Now, there are several issues throughout the house.

I finally have paid for an engineer to come to the house. His assessment was the same. In fact, he said the lot was not prepared correctly and should have had a retaining wall on the side of the house I was initially concerned about. I have tried to refinance my house but it does not pass inspection. I have hired a lawyer. Hopefully, Meritage will do what is right and pay to have my foundation fixed plus additional damage throughout my home caused by the foundation. I will fight this.

Finally, when I pressured them to get me the contract, they wanted to lower my incentive package or make me spend 50% more at the design center because, and I am quoting, "We make more money on structural upgrades and the design upgrades". My sales representative asked my agent to send him a letter stating that we refused their offer. Of course, we said no because we already signed the contract that they sent, and they refuse to sign. To say the least, this is dishonest. They have no customer service skills, and they absolutely have no respect for clients that are willing to spend $100,000 of their over priced homes. I see a pattern of deception in their dealings, and I am sure that they will be out of business in no time, especially with sales persons like these and managers that have no regard for the customer.

We were never sure if anything was anchored into studs. Before the dry wall was installed, my husband who has been a tradesman for many years noted many errors in the electrical and plumbing installation that did not follow the National Electric Code or our upgrades in the building plans. When we asked about this, we were told that just because a ceiling fan was written into the electric plan, it did not mean that a ceiling fan would be installed. The electric plans are simply a rough guide of what Meritage would do. As the building process continued, our list of mistakes grew longer and longer. With each mistake noted, we would call it to the attention of the GC.

Some of the mistakes were fixed. The deep gauges in the bathtub porcelain were painted. The large dent in the galvanized bedroom door was filled and painted. The broken cabinet under the 48-inch upgraded cooktop was caulked, and the heavy cooktop was left to rest on inch of granite above this cabinet. GE recommends that this heavy cooktop should rest upon a boxed-in cabinet to provide the needed stability. Similarly, the extended granite on the kitchen island was not reinforced or supported as it should be. The upgraded wood was not properly sanded before staining, leading to irregularities that my 10-year-old noticed. This was corrected by applying a dark stain to cover the mistakes and a thick polyurethane finish that had countless drips.

When we questioned the quality of the repairs, we were told that this is the way Meritage does things and that is not up for discussion. It did not seem to matter that we were paying a lot more money for a semi-custom Monterey home. The oversized lot retained water for 16 days after a heavy rain. Meritage installed drains, but placed them in backwards. The lot still retained 8-10 inches of water for days in the tree wells following a moderate rain and failed the community exterior inspection. After receiving my photos documenting the continued water retention, Meritage sent workmen to lift the drains and fill the large water retaining areas with mulch. The lot still retains water. It is impossible to list all of the mistakes that we noted - pouring the driveway 16 hours before a heavy rain, installing carpet before painting, drain spouts running down the front side of the tall entrance columns... We still have no idea why they were replacing the roof shingles months after the roof had been installed.

Ten months into the contractual process, the regional VP of construction told us that he thought it would take another 1-3 months to finish the home but could not guarantee that estimated completion date. The home was now 3 months behind the promised completion date. My family was still in temporary housing, and my kids were in danger of having to switch schools as they were enrolled under an “intent to reside” policy. Despite all of the other homes in the neighborhood being built, delays in the construction of this home were repeatedly blamed on a regional shortage of skilled labor. Meritage repeatedly told us that they could not find skilled laborers to work on the home. At this point, we obtained legal counsel and involved the Better Business Bureau. We were able to regain our earnest money with interest, but did not receive compensation for over $20,000 of expenses that their delays had caused. Within 1 month of ending the contract, Meritage placed the home on the market for $250,000 more than we had contracted to pay for the home. I’m hoping that this is useful to others.

I then spent the next 24 hours making 6 separate trips to the house bringing my fiancé, mother, father, agent, etc. I made it very clear to Cindi that I was interested in the house. I was ready to negotiate on the house. Cindi had mentioned that the house was being appraised and she’d have a better idea of what she could do on the price after she gets the appraisal. From the beginning, Cindi made it clear that the rooms were painted in kids colors for model purposes and several other items would be turned back to normal if purchased. She also mentioned that the drapery/furniture could all be negotiated.

On Tuesday, October 30, I submitted and received pre-qualification paperwork through the preferred lender, MTH Mortgage. Over the next week, I followed up with Cindi to see when I could get an offer. Finally, on Tuesday, November 6, she called me with an offer of $299k and mentioned that this wasn’t a firm price and there was room for negotiation. Immediately after receiving this call, I countered her via email and we continued to negotiate via email over the next few days. I would like to point out that Cindi’s dealings with me included email responses that were extremely rude; the very first email response from her included: “Interesting, I sold 60 homes in 12 months and the homeowners are very happy. We are not the builder for you and don’t need to discount our homes. People see the value in our homes.” Being a new home buyer, those kind of pushy/rude tactics were a bit intimidating and not necessary. I had clearly shown I was interested in the house and had seen the value in the house. Despite her behavior, I ignored it because we were that interested in the house.

On Friday, November 9, at 5:47pm and 6:44pm, she called me. After going to the division office and getting president’s approval, she got back to me with the final offer as $290k + $4k of closing cost covered by builder + all drapery included + turning the house back to normal. She asked me to come in Saturday morning to sign the paper - I needed a bit more time to discuss with my family. I had asked her if she could include the kitchen nook furniture and the master bedroom set as well. She was to see what she could do.

On Saturday (November 10) afternoon, my fiancé and I visited the house once again. After talking with Cindi, it seemed like getting the couple items of furniture may be an issue. So, we just decided to accept the deal as-is. I told her I’d get back within a couple days with my final decision. On Tuesday (November 13) at 7am, I sent Cindi an email accepting the $290k + $4k of closing cost covered by builder + all drapery included + turning the house back to normal. She immediately got the ball rolling - she contacted my agent and got his info, sent me contracts to review, took down information, etc. I was to meet with her at 4:30pm that day to sign the paperwork. This is where the real fun begins.

At 2:40pm (just two hours prior to signing), I received an email from Cindi stating that we won’t be able to leave the drapes; it will go to another model with all of the furniture. The entire time of negotiating with Cindi, she was using the thousands of dollars of drapery as a selling point and we had shown interest in it. To throw this at me 2 hours before I was about to sign is unacceptable. While I disagreed with this, I told Cindi via email I’m not going to back out on the deal over some drapes, but (I recall this very well) “Do as you see fit, but that’s exactly how the agreement was.”

At 3:50pm, I received a call from Cindi stating that she wouldn’t be able to turn the house back to normal as we agreed - we had agreed on painting a bit downstairs and the kids rooms upstairs, talked about taking a large mirror down that was attached to a wall in the house, talked about taking wood squares down in the game room. In my previous conversations with Cindi, these were all a normal process of turning the house back to normal. I relented on everything because, again, I wasn’t going to lose this deal over petty things. My only request at this point was that she paints the two small kids rooms back to a normal color - surely she wasn’t going to lose this deal over painting a couple rooms that she had said would be done from the very beginning. I have email responses from her, which include “We will definitely turn the rooms back.”

Despite her asking me to not waste a trip, at 4:30pm I arrived at her office. She stated that even painting the kids rooms would be an issue. Frustrated but wanting to sign the deal, I also gave in on that - I just wanted to close this deal. I was pushing to sign the paperwork, but she then stated that she was still waiting on president’s approval for even the price? She said they were pushing for a higher price. In our previous conversations, this is something she stated she had already received last Friday. We had already come to an agreement on everything, and two hours prior to me coming to signing, she had basically taken back the entire offer. I left her office with no paperwork signed (even though I was completely willing). She stated she needed another day or two to get final approval on the price (?), although we agreed on the price several days beforehand.

The whole turn of events was very strange. For the two weeks we were discussing this, she was pushing me to sign the papers almost immediately. After agreeing to a deal, two hours prior to signing, all these red flags all of a sudden show up. It didn’t make sense. It seemed like she was trying to delay the deal. The only reason I could possible come up with is that she thought she may have had another buyer show up that afternoon and wanted to see if she could sell at a higher price. Either way, after discussing with my fiancé - although we were in love with this house - we’ve decided to not pursue this deal. I have emails to confirm most of my statements above.

Going into a house is a major decision, and I did not feel comfortable dealing with a builder’s agent that was going to pull these kinds of tactics. As a soon-to-be married couple, we had made the leap of faith that this was the house for us. To have the rug pulled out from under us just two hours prior to signing, that is unacceptable business practices by your sales associate. I hope this situation is handled properly. Thank you.

The termite technician called my attention to a huge problem. When he was drilling through the concrete, the drill penetrated about an inch and a half and broke through the concrete. In all the years the tech was on the job, he never noted concrete that was any less than 3-1/2 inches thick. He then drilled several more holes, all producing the same results in a span of about 4 foot. Then the tech discovered the footer for the guest suite was near 3/4" off the concrete pad. So now we have grout popping out all over the house, structure is off the concrete pad and concrete pad 1-1/2 inches thick. I was told since the house is 9 years old, the amount of grout lost is natural. What?

My other homes had grout that nearly twice this old and I never had a problem at all. This tends to imply Meritage Homes are definitely not built for the long haul. Meritage replaced a portion of my driveway concrete due to a large void under it. Hmm, sounds familiar? The structural engineer replied via report that he did not see any problem? I immediately asked for an ultrasound survey of the house to define any other affected areas. They declined and dumped it on me. Anyone knows that where there is smoke, there is most certainly fire. The decline for the survey leads me to believe that they have full knowledge, they will find massive defects and they definitely do not want to fix.

We are talking about home here - the biggest investment people make and they don't care to back up their quality claims? We have had to have the termite tech come out now 6 times to retreat. These gentlemen are one of the best in Arizona and do not skimp in any manner or fashion. It is speculated the void may be the problem/nest. I can just imagine how many more voids exist, which may or may not have had a hand in ridding the house of termites. Just how does a poured pad develop such a void? How is this possible and better yet, why did the floor not sink into the void? Way too many questions and no answers. I have helped pour concrete and to the best of my knowledge, it naturally floats/fills into void to create an even floor.

Another footnote is that we have planted multiple trees that mysteriously died within a short period of time with absolutely no apparent reason. The nursery personnel has no idea why a perfectly healthy trees wither and die. Meritage did respond and I totally disagree with their findings. Working in new home construction provided some familiarity, so I am no dummy. Oh yes, then we checked the survey to find out the house was built 10' off the plans, leaving only a small space for the RV gate. Obviously there are no property lines, so we had no idea of the error until landscaping was completed.

Would we ever consider another Meritage home? Not in this lifetime, not even a resale or rental. Bad news all the way around. Why? Simple, once burned. As far as we are concerned, this house is not structurally sound and until a survey is completed, we will continue to believe it. For the small amount it would cost to prove us wrong, we lack the understanding of how our family's well being is tossed like trash. Let the buyer beware before an investment such as this with a company that does not seem to care. I gave them a chance and now we must seek remedy. So much for being a nice guy.

All I can do is tell everyone beware of this builder. They are horrible, they are now using less insulation on the new homes they are still building in our addition, plus they have cut into the concrete in 4 homes and cut the tension wires, flooded out one home and refused to replace the drywall. Not sure if they are disclosing this to the buyers! We live in Cortile in Palm Valley Goodyear, AZ. Stay far away. I wish we had! There is so much more. I would need another page to get into! Also, solar is worthless. The electric bill is $200-300. It's supposed to be net zero utility bills! That's with AC set at 76.

I cannot tell you how disappointing this is to find your first home have so many issues. Yes, the warranty was pretty responsive, but they always went for the quick fix instead of truly finding the cause. This is why it took them over a year to figure out why the master shower was leaking (they incorrectly installed the shower pan per manufacturer’s instructions). Now, to be dealing with an AC that’s working improperly after just a little over 2 years is just the cherry on top. I could not be more disappointed with their building and attention to detail. I will never recommend anyone buying a home from Meritage.

I had difficulty communicating with them due to a language barrier so I explained my concerns to the main office staff. They said the repair should be fine and if not, they would correct. Well a few months later, the rainy season came and my floors were again ruined due to the rain coming in. Shortly there after, my intercom system no longer worked and the cracks reappeared. I contacted the warranty office and guess what? They now claimed my warranty period was over and would not repair. I contacted the Better Business Bureau and I feel like they are being paid to back Meritage. They had Meritage contractors come out and they looked at everything. The guy even said the damage to my floor was horrible. But after all of this, they claimed that the warranty was over. BBB closed my complaint with no additional comment from me.

The company does not back up their poor quality. For example, the counter tops were not put in right and therefore the tops are buckling. Their suggestion is to put wax in the cut lines. Wax does not work. They simply did not put the counters together right. Did they use adhesive? Also, the water pumps were not put in to save money. So it takes gallons upon gallons of precious water to get hot water to the bathrooms. Here in the dessert, they did not tell the new owners about this! The Mexicans used to create and fix defects in the home had little or no experience.

Consequences: My mortgage was sold to Chase Bank, who is questioning me and the original purchasing papers. They cannot figure it out and asking me to come up with $18,000. I currently have a low interest rate; however, Chase Bank is not helpful or caring to keep it that way. I cannot sell my home due to the fact that it is worth $113,000 and was purchased at $205,000.

The construction is poor; therefore, the amount of money I have to put into it is too much. The roof has leaks. After contacting Meritage several times regarding the leaking roof, they finally had someone come out to fix it. But it created cracks on the ceiling, it is never ending. Being disabled, my ability to deal with the problems Meritage allowed me to accept, for their financial benefit is not acceptable.

I sent a letter canceling the agreement according to the mortgage contingency in the P&S (the time for securing the loan had ran out because of no fault of ours, we did everything their mortgage company asked of us). Their mortgage councilor and our salesperson Melanie ** agreed that we could not get financing and we would have the return of our deposit after signing two release forms. We did this in good faith.

We did not hear from them for several weeks and upon my initiation, the sales representative informed me that the Vice President Brian ** is refusing to return the deposit because of some vague language that we cannot find in the original P&S. The mortgage contingency is very clear that if we did our part of trying to secure financing and it was not successful, our deposit of over $4,300 dollars would be returned to the buyers. They want us to agree that if we bought a home from them within six months, they would credit the deposit.

After having him renege on the agreement, to return the deposit because of a failure to secure a mortgage in a timely manner flies in the face of good business and fairness to their potential and present customers. We do not wish to do business with this company in the future (lack of trust). The very idea that we had to institute a dialog with Mr. ** to find out that he was overriding a decision by his subordinates, just leaves us in a fatal negative mode. We wish full restitution of our deposit as we signed the release forms back in November of 2011.

After they laid the very expensive tile, we realized that it was not the same lot tile, so they had to tear it up and start again. Because we did not want to pay for the extra 2 tone paint for $1500.00, we opted out of that. We did however, ask someone if they would mind doing that for all of our issues that we have had and we have already bought the paint, but we never got a reply.

The fencing is not acceptable, the landscape is sparse with very little foliage. We are moving in next week after we have someone do the 2 tone paint. Since we have been closed since 12/29/11, this has been quite an event and a trip. Our sales person has been wonderful and without him things would not have been expedited.

I still have a list of things that were supposed to be fixed, yet Meritage homes of Texas refuses. Do not buy from them. They are great until they get your money.

I will not go further at this time. But when I got online to find some main office information to contact, I found this site. And the first complaint was on the exact same subject. I will keep all informed about how this turns out. Maybe we can find more people who have had this same result and get something going! They seem to not care about anything but getting our money as quick as they can. This is not our first rodeo. They will have a huge fight if they want to do this in this manner!

Several months ago I contracted with Meritage homes to build me a home for 248,000 and received approval from Meritage Homes in house mortgage company for a VA loan for 248,000. Meritage built my home as contracted and when we were ready to close on the home I was informed that I did not qualify for the 248,000 VA loan. Mertiage than referred me to their back up lender who said the only way I could qualify for the 248,000 was to have my child support payments go away, which I was unable to do.

The backup lender informed me that I could qualify for a 208,000 VA loan amount but Meritage does not have any homes in the neighbor where I want to live in that 208,000 price range. I do not understand why Meritage is giving me such a hard time when it was your in house lender that messed up. MTH approved me initially and then at the last minute denied my loan.

According to my purchase contract with Meritage if they cannot approve my loan I am entitled to a full refund of my earnest deposit immediately.

In terms of dollar amount, I have basically lost more than $10,000. Also from Meritage Homes document, I found that they misrepresented the square footage by adding at least 86 sq. ft. of the house garage extension into the living square footage. I have requested their DFW Director of Sales to compensate my loss of over $10,000 due to the loss of square footage. But he denied it and blamed that it was the appraiser's mistake.

Then, I requested Meritage Homes to re-appraise the house, he refused to do it. Rather, he warned me that if I choose not to close my home purchase transaction, they would take away my earnest money (which is more than $20,000) and sell the house to other people. It's hard for me to believe that Meritage Homes, as a public company, has such poor customer service with focus on customer's money rather than customer's satisfaction. It is the most unpleasant experience to me as a customer.

With the realtor which is the **** , I have not heard from him nor did he help me get my earnest money refunded. I was shown three houses. The lending company has the following details: **** ****.

Upon completion of our home, they laid the sod around the house. The sod was dead in a large section of our backyard. We complained for months, so finally, they sent someone out to replace the grass they removed the grass but did not replace it, that was maybe Aug 10. On Nov, just a couple of weeks ago, someone comes out lay a couple of blocks of grass then leaves. He returned the day before Thanksgiving. He laid one more block of grass, then left.

Needless to say, the yard still has a large section that still needs grass, but to top it all off, the grass that he has laid is also dead grass that looks like hay. The plumbing and the AC were issues that we have had to address numerous times. The bathroom toilets seem to keep lines of black stuff around the toilet bowls and I don't know what that means. The floors in my master bedroom and the game room have squeaked from the first day we moved in. The master bedroom floor also moves every time that we walk across it. They finally sent someone out after many complaints to repair the flooring. Now the game room floor does not squeak as much. The master bedroom floor however still moves when you walk across it. When we walk across our bedroom the mirror shakes and door rattles.

The carpet in the house is another problem. It was not laid very well from the beginning. There are gaps between the wall and the carpet, around the steps there are missing pieces of carpet, and there is a space where you can see the wood that they did not paint or a lack of carpet to cover the wood. The carpet on the steps or the wood was not evenly laid. Two steps that were lose or not tacked down properly so if you stepped on them just the right way the wood would flip up. Our garage disposal is starting to rust within the sink; the plumber stated this is normal! When they installed the glass sliding door they neglected to pour the cement underneath the door to support it, so after as result the door would not lock and it was off track.

They came out after many complaints of not being able to secure my home and sent someone to pour the cement. When we were at the design center, we requested our bathroom windows be obscured well. They only did the master bath and not the others stating it was not documented in the request. The bedroom downstairs, they neglected to install a light within the closet stating they have floor plans that do not come with lights in the closet. I had issues with losing the hot water in the house and sometimes it would take them a couple of days to restore the hot water. One of the AC units was not hooked up and I was told that the unit is draining in the toilet. What should I expect as a result! The plumber stated there should be no problems with the AC unit draining in the toilet. The plumber came into our home and provided us his business card stating once the warranty runs out we can call him for repairs.

Well, this leads me to believe that I cannot trust this plumber as he is trying to line up business for himself off the clock. So how can I trust his professional opinion today? Should I expect to not get quality work so that he can wait for the business later? They did a really poor job with dripping paint throughout the house on the carpet. The painters did a very messy job with painting the base boards in the house; the paint is smeared on the tile throughout the house.

I can keep going as we have so many issues and Meritage is very bad about fixing the mess that their staff created. I have written emails and placed calls to their corporate office and nothing. After working with the original supervisor for the construction of our home and getting know where fast; he refused to respond to my calls or emails. They replaced him and had us call the warranty department who gave us a contractor that worked for Meritage well eventually he was removed, and then they gave us the warranty department manager, now their intern.

We still do not have the results we expected from Meritage. My husband is active duty military and he has not been home with our children and I for much of the time that we have been in our home. I am very concerned about the electrical system in our home but Meritage does not seem to care about my home or my family. I have been fighting with Meritage since May a week after we moved in our home and today I continue to fight with Meritage.

I have to add one more important note. Meritage utilize undocumented workers to do repairs on homes. They will not call the vendor who installed some of the products in our home. I had to state to Meritage that I will not allow the undocumented workers to work in my home. I spoke with the vendor who installed the carpet in my home he came out several times identified the issues with the carpet but has done nothing to repair the carpet. He stated if Meritage sent out someone else to work on the carpet that our 5 month old warranty is no longer valid. I have so many issues with our brand new home and even more issues with Meritage any help that I can get is welcomed. As I stated previously my husband is military and currently away so I welcome the assistance that I can get in resolving my issues with Meritage.

In fact, I would go as far to say that we were purposefully misled by the sales agent. I believe that he intended to omit this very necessary piece of information in order to close the sale. The proximity to the schools was the number one reason why we made our purchase. Fast forward to now (Sept 2010), walking access to both schools has been completely closed off; Meritage built a fence running the entire length of the new neighborhood and failed to provide any walking path in any form to the families of hundreds of children that formerly walked to and from school daily. Not only is it a gross oversight by Meritage in terms of being mindful of their clients' needs, but it is deceptive, to say the least, to sell homes with the impression that children can indeed walk to the schools.

Even worse is that after many of us homeowners in this neighborhood made countless calls to the Meritage corporate office and after we signed a petition, Meritage still failed to provide any sort of explanation or compensation. We even took our story to the local news. Meritage replied with a standard statement that was insulting at best. I could go on and on about the shoddy workmanship, the promises to get certain things fixed, the waiting on repairs, etc., but I simply don't have the stomach for it anymore. All I can say is that we hope to sell our home sooner rather than later. I will never buy from Meritage again and I will never recommend it to anyone.

In addition, I also find that they never bothered to tie the water heater drip pan into the drain line and also that the grounding line for the plumbing has about an inch of insulation missing from it. Yes, about an inch, and not where it is tied into the copper plumbing at. In fact, it was stuffed under the insulation next to a rafter.

And people wonder why individuals go postal. I guess we will have to go get the lawyer after all. Either that, or I am just going to walk away from the house equity and all, what a nightmare. And yes, the same guys that built the shower downstairs built the one upstairs. Why does that one not leak yet? Because we only just started to use it.

They are now offering three plans now below 2200 square feet; one is 1800 squarr feet and another, 1900 square feet. Our house value has now just gone down tremendously if these homes are built in our subdivision.

This is the last time we buy from Meritage and Big Hammond Homes. They care nothing for the homeowners who are currently living in this subdivision and have already purchased from them and everything about making a buck and closing out a subdivision. When we contacted the sales person about this, she said that it wasn't a big deal with the smaller homes going into the subdivision. And when I told her it would just devalue our home, she had nothing to say.

Word to the wise, think twice before building with Meritage or even buying in a Meritage subdivision that isn't more than 3/4 complete. Check the HOA, and make sure you are able to live with the minimum square feet house that might be built there, because they will definitely build those smaller houses in your larger subdivisions.

Due to the 104 degree temperature to service our emergency, we had to contact someone to fix the issue. Currently, Legacy Homes is out of business but is part of Meritage Homes LLC. The emergency contact number for Meritage Homes belongs to a resident who is not associated with the company at all. When we contact Meritage Homes, they told us that if we had it serviced outside of their contractors that the warranty is void. We got this comment today and a year ago after they contacted us three days after our emergency contact attempt. Legacy Homes did not give us paperwork on our AC unit or any contact info on Goodman AC units. They did not register our AC unit with Goodman. Our neighbor had the same issue with their unit and our homes were built not even a year apart.

Well to our surprise, the house being built at 1017 has the same elevation as our home, which is at **, right across the street. The model home salesperson has yet to return my call. The corporate office has yet to explain to me why this happened. When we were picking our lot at the time as we were looking for our home site, we had to go to our 3 choice because of this rule. Now it looks like a free for all in where they built, not caring what the homes look like, which will affect the price when the time comes to sell. I hope someone will explain to me why Meritage builds cookie cutter communities and charge custom homes prices. My home resale price will be greatly affected by this.

I had pointed out during the final walk through, all the flaking and missing brick mortar which they promised to fix, but that never happened. We're probably looking at re-bricking the entire back of the house at a probable cost of 10 to 15k now, 5 years later. We also had them pour a concrete porch on the back of the house that has already cracked in several places.

Our neighbors to the north side had a drainage problem they believed was caused by our house being built and Meritage Home Builders came over and put a drain on their property and hooked it into my drain. When I told them to take it out, they just ignored me and never did. About the only thing they attempted to fix were a couple of settling crack that they speckled over but never came back and repainted, typical American service.

After reading some of the complaints on this site, I think I wouldn't have bought it if I had seen this site before I bought it. I think the main thing we all ought to do is find some way to publicize this site to anyone considering making a purchase from them. It might not help us but it will make them pay attention to their new customers.

Two days ago, our sink, that is mounted under our granite countertop, collapsed into the cabinet below. Apparently, they only glued the sink into the underside of the granite, no type of bracketing or bolting it into the underside of the granite! My wife called yesterday, did a warranty request, and we have heard nothing yet! We have a reverse osmosis water system under the sink and I hope that was not damaged as well!

Meritage is horrible after you buy your home. Their warranty support is non-existent. The cheap appliances and shoddy workmanship is just good enough to get you through the warranty period, which for most things was 1 year. After that, things will begin to break, fall apart, and die. I just feel so taken advantage of. Don't let the prices fool you. You get what you pay for I guess.

Due to the house still being under warranty, we contacted Meritage Homes. They came out to view the damage. At that time they cut out a piece of dry wall to find where the leak was coming from. Once the dry wall was removed, the overflow pipe behind the dry wall had a clean cut across the pipe. Meritage's plumber informed us that we had caused the damage to the pipe when we installed our water softener.

We felt that it was impossible for us to cause the damage as they stated. We contacted an independent plumber who stated the only way this pipe could have been broken in such a way was by using a pipe cutting tool. Therefore, it would have been impossible for us to do this, due to the fact that the pipe was behind the dry wall. We have since forwarded our report to Meritage Homes and they continue to give us the runaround.

The supervisor obviously thinks I am an idiot with no construction experience. He told me that a couple face nailed shingles are no big deal. Well, one year later, the builder put a trailer through the garage. I had to threaten them with legal action along with the insurance company threatening them to get it fixed. Next, some of their workers dropped some mortar on my truck. Luckily, it is a twelve-year old work truck. Now, the shower seat was leaking and we found black mold, which I put a respirator on and was forced to tear out myself. I got a lawyer crunch the numbers after the company said, "Sue us. We are not fixing it."

10) Acme brick on one side of the house has shed the white and gray colors and now looks orange. This is the biggest problem so far, and Meritage and Acme have made up a lie and stated the iron in the city water has changed the brick orange. A lawyer will love this one, because when you take your finger and scrape off the white and gray features off the brick, it is orange underneath. No one will return my calls, and if they do, they just lie and make up whatever they can think of. I will take them to court if it comes down to that, but only after I go door to door and get some support.

Did you forget about the ** 5 feet wide stumps you'd leave behind or the fact that I paid more for the property because of "the large, beautiful, mature trees?". Or maybe you forgot about the ferns and 6 different species of plants that are growing from the dry, rotted trunks that fall off in clusters. When you lay a foundation to a home, there is a correct way to relocate roots to avoid this, but obviously, after reading all these reviews, they are cheap and take every shortcut possible. They have been avoiding further phone calls so this situation will most likely end in the courtroom. No one answers their ** phones. Terrible customer service. Bob, the builder/contractor in DFW, is a total **. I cannot believe someone actually gave him a college degree. He avoids us at all costs and tried to pawn us off to various people in the company to finish his jobs. He must have made fake business cards for them because they don't answer either.

You know Meritage is cheap when they've got the builder driving a 1992 F150 that is conveniently parked at the model all day. Do you actually supervise your jobs Bob? Because it might spare your company and homeowners the hassle. It might help people sleep better at night knowing they won't wake up to a leak, a tree falling through the roof, a foul smell, a broken HVAC unit, toilet, etc. The model home has been broken into 3 times in a month, but spending $260k on a new home doesn't constitute a ** community gate? I see several roofs in the neighborhood that have bubbles in the roof because they didn't ventilate the attic properly. Every few days, a strong, awful smell takes up the entire upstairs. They sent a plumber out and he found nothing. Guess that's a job well done guys. Way to put your problem solving skills to work!

Every time it rains, my mailbox leaks so all of my mail is bled together. Netflix keeps wondering why all of the DVDs I sent back were water-damaged. Let's ask the US post office what happens when a mail is tampered with. Let's also ask the mailman how annoyed he is with the flag that won't go down because the brick wasn't laid correctly. I still have a leaking toilet that has turned the tile behind it a "2000 flushes" blue color. Do I really need to go on here? I'm tired of wasting my time with these people. Please don't waste your time with them or purchase one of their homes. It's very disappointing for us especially being that we are first time home buyers. We love our home, don't get me wrong, but all the hassles make me wonder if it is all worth it because we haven't been able to enjoy ourselves. If you are going to spend this much money on a home, make sure you're getting better quality. These houses go up in a week by people fresh over the border.

In December 2005, my parents purchased a house from Meritage Homes with a completion date of April 2006. However, it was pushed back repeatedly and not completed until August 2006. During this time, house prices began to take a turn for the worse. Before actual completion, less than one-third of the homes were sold in the 71-home community, and the sales office had dramatically dropped prices.

Unfortunately, our house was appraised for $81,000 less than the $813,162 sales price. We were assured that the 2,232 sq.ft. home was worth the price. The sales office then processed a home equity line from our $80,000 down payment to cover the difference between the appraisal and the sale price. During construction, my parents had established a strong relationship with the sales office and trusted their recommendations without the fear of deception. However, in retrospect, we believe that our trust was misguided. At one point, we rejected a recommendation to forge rental documents to inflate our income.

Attempting to understand the business practices of the regional office, I uncovered unfair political contributions in efforts to secure development locations. Additionally, these contributions were unreported and in violation of the fair political practices commission. These violations are clear indicators of unethical business practices by the Concord, CA regional office and Meritage Homes as a whole.

After two years, the development has not been completed. More than half of the lots still remain empty, except for stacks of wood and cement frames. Attempts to sell our home have been unsuccessful due to the price drops by the sales office and the unattractive aesthetics of an incomplete development. At this time, we are no longer able to make our payments and have recently discovered that we owe another $80,000 equity line of credit used towards the house price, which was never disclosed by the sales office. I hope you will be able to shed some light on this situation.

On Monday morning, we received news that our offer was not accepted. There was no counter offer. We were quite distraught and my real estate agent went back to the representative to work on the price. The representative, Amy **, was quite rude to our agent. Our real estate agent wanted to work on the price with Amy, but she wouldn't provide a dollar amount to work with. After the deal went sour, our real estate agent asked for our earnest money check back. Amy told him that the new home booklet would have to be returned before she would release our earnest check.

We live in Beaumont, which is almost 2 hours away from Sugar Land. We cannot drop everything to come back to Houston to drop off the booklet. At no time, was this information relayed to us, that if we do not return the book, we won't get our check back. Amy said that we wasted her time. What about our time? As a consumer, this was not a piece of cake that we were buying. We were trying to get the best deal on a 300,000 dollars house. I understand with the economy the way it is, every business is trying to make ends meet. However, customer service should not be compromised for a sale. Amy hung up on my agent and demanded the book stating that she told about the book being returned. My wife and I do not recall her telling us this. We have no use for the book if the deal was not going to go through. However, to use the book as bartering tool to get our check back is absurd.

We value her time, but we do not feel she valued our time though. We did return the book to get our check back. We feel that we should get an apology and be compensated on our time and gas for driving back and forth to Houston to get our check. We contacted Meritage Homes Customer service on Feb. 10, 2009 but to no avail. We haven't received a single response.

That aside (2nd problem), they also reduced the price of the homes from a $350k to $400k community to a $200k to $325k (not so bad) but now they are changing the models again (11/08) totally changing the look of the community of just 200 homes - they had only 60 homes to go to complete this community. And with just 30 to 40 homes to go, they are reducing the prices again to $175k to $225k. This is not an upscale community which is what we wanted. We cannot sell at what we purchased the home for because of the decline in the market and the fact that they have reduced the prices again makes it even more of a challenge.

Now they say that they need to reduce the prices to keep moving and close the community but, at what cost? We who purchased here prior are a bit better off than those purchasing now. We have nothing in common with these people - we will, mark my words, see a rise in crime - you can sense the upbringing of the children to where there will be robberies of the haves against the have-nots - and this is directly the result of this price reduction greed of the builder. And I say that because no other builder around us has changed the their floor plans - they are all, and there are several (like 10) communities which are all under construction right now.

Now back to the construction of the home - Meritage has changed superintendents in our community 3 times since we closed in 2 years (actually 22 months). Now, I believe he is only working part time. We have cracks in our stucco - which they refused to take care of - cracks in our concrete driveway. Our dining room has two windows and they are not at the same height - definitely noticeable - they refuse to take care of it. Their customer service is the worse - they try every trick in the book to try and not take care of an issue. We have other residents who have had issues with Meritage since they closed only to fall on deaf ears with no satisfaction in their complaints.

And when you do your walk through, their contract prohibits you from holding up the closing until the repairs are made. If you don't close - they retain your deposit and your contract is cancelled - with no mediation whatsoever. The contracts with the builders (here in Florida) are the worst; the contracts are 1-sided protection (builders). The best solution is to buy a home already built and have it inspected; if there are problems or repairs to be made - the seller has to pay for them or you have the option of walking away.

I know it's nice to have everything brand spanking new but! I don't care whether or not you are buying a $100k home or a $1M dollar home. When you get the keys, it should be right or at the very least corrected when something is brought to their attention, not ignored. Never buy a Meritage Home if you have the ability to choose other builders or a resale - also the price of a resale is negotiable; the price from the builder is not or has very small discount or they will trick you into offering to pay your closing costs as a form of reduction through their title agency (another gimmick).

Also, we did not mention that the shower door was installed improperly. We cannot even shut the door. In addition to the above matter, we have one of the drawer panels in the kitchen, which we do not use frequently, came off. The drawers are made of particle boards and not wood. Now we can use it until it gets replaced. We did not notify you because of your standard response of it is not warrantied. We cannot honestly recommend Meritage to our friends because of the poor quality they put into their homes. Something must be done to monitor the way the homes are being built by this builder. We are extremely disappointed in the workmanship! A 2 1/2 year old house should not be falling apart like it is doing right now!

This is their Fredrickberg design and every house until mine has a double unit system. My exact identical house on the other side of the neighborhood that was built in the same time frame as mine got 2. A house that is 1 month behind mine is currently set to receive 2. My house and 2 other homes they built for inventory received their NEW IMPROVED smaller system. This stands out as a cost cutting method that in the heat of Texas is more than criminal. To skimp on of all things AC. Now I'm being told that there's nothing they can do and I have to live with it. They don't act too concerned, but of course this isn't one of their personal homes. Of all the homes they building across southern Houston, I get lucky enough to be the 1st to get this NEW smaller system. I've walked their other neighborhood and all other new builds in a house my size is set for 2! Beyond angry and now homeless, having sold our old house a months ago. All the waiting and detail now tarnished. So much for our beautiful new home. They think I'm a sucker... Are you?

they came out once to fix the carpet on the step, and to fix the closets bars, one fell again. the floor upstairs they never came back to address the issue. also the cracks in the ceiling and cornors. also the hole around the pipe in the half bath.

i have the worst looking tub that if i am going to sell i have to change the tub at my expense

Our house will be completed more than 2 months past when we were originally told it would be ready for move in. All because the sales staff did not have all of their information together! When speaking with the VP of Sales, we received excuses that had nothing to do with us. The main excuse...Meritage has doubled in size over the last 6 months and we need to be patient.

Clearly, the company's HR department is unable to keep up with the growth. If I had it to do over again, I would NOT build with Meritage Homes. If anyone reading this decides to build with Meritage, I advise taking a tape recorder to your meetings, otherwise get everything in writing & have your sales person sign off on it. Protect yourselves from their sales tactics!

Because of the delay in beginning the build of the house, we will incur substantial fees from our current residence.