| A Contract To Purchase That Never Should Have Been................... |
We looked at what is now our home built by Robert Ryan of Celebrity Homes LLC, Scottsdale, Arizona, multiple times before making an offer to purchase. Franci Hicks of Silverado Homes & Land was our agent. We wrote a contract with our offer to purchase and after some negotiations the contract was agreed upon.
During our visits to the home we had noticed that when turning on lights that the circuit breakers would trip. We were told by Robert Ryan and his electrician that they must have gotten a bad box of circuit breakers.
We hired Joel Schmitz of Sherlock Homes Inspection Service LLC to inspect the home.
There were many things going on with this home that made us very hesitant about buying it, most importantly electrical issues. Joel Schmitz of Sherlock Homes Inspection Services LLC and I exchanged several emails about the electric in which he stated the electrical issues were minor.
We reached a point that we did not feel that we should buy the house. We told our agent Franci Hicks to cancel the contract - in no uncertain terms. Ms. Hicks did not cancel the contract. Ms. Hicks advised us that her broker, Sheryl Kesling spoke to the attorney for Silverado Homes and Land regarding our desire to cancel the contract. Ms. Hicks advised us that the attorney for Silverado Homes and Land said that we cannot cancel the contract and that we "must close."
Franci Hicks also advised us that she brought her own personal electrician to our home to ease our minds and that he said the electric was fine.
We closed on the house. We became the unfortunate owners of a Celebrity Home!
From day one we have had horrible electrical problems. We learned that our 4700 square foot house only has 200 amps of electric. Our homeowners insurance has advised us that they may no longer insure our house.
After living in the house for a very short while the electrical problems became unbearable. The builder and various electricians were at our home discussing the problems that we were having when we learned that we only had 200 amp service. Ms. Hicks was present on this day and stated that had she known the house was only 200 amps she would have advised us not to buy the house. Wait a minute............didn't Ms. Hicks have her own personal electrician inspect the house before closing. Didn't her electrician say "everything was fine?" If in fact Ms. Hicks did have her personal electrician here to inspect our house wouldn't said electrician have noticed that the house is ONLY 200 AMPS? Even the most simpleton of electricians certainly would know that 200 amp electrical service to a 4600 square foot house is totally inadequate. Wouldn't he know that is likely the reason that the circuit breakers are tripping when lights are turned on? Why didn't Joel Schmitz of Sherlock Homes Inspection Service LLC figure that one out?
Due to the extreme defects of this house we were forced to hire an attorney. We learned through our attorney that we could have and Ms. Hicks should have canceled our contract to purchase when we told her to do so. Our attorney wrote a letter to Franci Hicks and Sheryl Kesling of Silverado Homes and Land advising them of our intent to file suit. We then received a nine page letter back from their attorney. The letter basically says that Ms. Hicks is not responsible for anything and goes on to describe that real estate agents just pass on information between the owners of the property and the client.
I was and still am shocked by the letter from Silverado Homes & Land attorney. I will post his letter on the litigation pages of this website. I would urge everyone to read this letter so that you are fully informed of the responsibilities of your real estate agent.
After you read the attorney's letter regarding Silverado Homes & Land I think you will ask the same questions that I did - Who needs real estate agents? More importantly -why are they paid such huge commissions?
We found the house and then asked the agent to take us through it. Ms. Hicks relayed information between the seller and us. Ms. Hicks wrote up the contract. Is that worth the$49,500.00 that was paid to Silverado Homes and Land? There are people that make that much, even less, for a full year of hard work and they ARE responsible for everything that they do on their job.
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