Advice to Prospective Homeowners
Advice
to Prospective Cresswind Homeowners
I wish I could say that our experiences with Kolter Cresswind Charlotte were unique, but I can't. Many of our neighbors have shared with us their experiences and they were much the same as ours: the specific issues may differ, but responses are the same. Promises made and broken. The need to constantly contact Kolter to get them to perform work. Missed appointments. People showing up at your front door unannounced and unexpected.
After 19 months in our new home, we still have unresolved issues - the major one being the windows - which have prevented us from fully "moving in". Because of the window issue, we do not have curtains and drapes on our windows due to the fear that the installers will damage any window treatments we would put up. We have not yet had our final "11-month" walk-through even though is has now been 19+ months since we closed, and we will not have that walk-through until the windows issue is fully resolved to our
satisfaction.
Update 07-17-2019: We had our 11-month walkthrough on 06-19-2019, just shy of 7 months late.
In anticipation of our final walk-through, we had an independent home inspector do a thorough home inspection in February 2019. We used Home Vue
of Harrisburg NC, and are extremely pleased with the quality of the inspection and the report. Well worth the money, as they found several issues that we were unaware of. Those issues will be added to our growing list of items to be addressed by Kolter.
10-01-19 Update:
With one or two exceptions (most notably the issue our lawn - erosion control on the back slope of our property (which we will be addressing with Mecklenburg County's erosion specialist) , and dead areas of sod ), and cracking of concrete in the garage, we finally closed the book on outstanding issues by October 2019 - a full 21 months after we closed on our home.
09-01-2020 Update: Kolter & Baytree (landscapers), despite our stated desire to wait until Spring 2020 to lay new sod, insisted that they lay the sod at the end of the growing season in 2019. To get us to agree to this, they provided us a written guarantee that if there were ANY issues, they would address them in 2020.
Of course, when the growning season commenced in 2020, there were plenty of bare and dead spots in the sod. In addition, Baytree's lawnmowers scalped areas of our lawn down to bare soil. I was sitting in my office one day when their lawn mowers came through and I watched as a piece of sod was literally thrown out of the lawn mower. We reported this. Baytree came out when we were conveniently not home for their inspection, and said that "sod will take a few years to cover patched areas. Does not need to be replaced." This was Baytree & Kolter's idea of "resolution" to the problem.
Recommendations for Prospective Home Owners
The most important recommendation we can make is, before committing to Kolter Cresswind, check out the other 55+ communities in the greater Charlotte area. For example, the Lennar Imagery community just west of Charlotte has beautiful homes in the same price range, on larger lots and with greater ammenities including lake access.
BEFORE
you commit to Kolter Cresswind:
- Make sure you see the complete site plan, and not just the partial site plan on display in the Sales Office. Some neighbors from the next Phases of development were shocked to find out after they moved into their home that the forest behind them was being removed for the next Phase of development and that they would have neighbors in their backyard!
- Drive the neighborhood and talk to any residents you see. Most neighbors are friendly and will answer your questions honestly. This may be the most important thing you do!
For those who have already committed to Kolter Cresswind:
- Get absolutely everything in writing. Make sure the contract you sign has everything you expect to get, and do not take any verbal promises made by Kolter.
- Visit your home site as often as possible during the construction phase.
Take plenty of pictures to document everything
you see, and address all issues immediately
with your home's construction manager.
- Use your own real estate agent to represent your interests - don't rely on the Kolter sales staff.
- Have an attorney other than Kolter's represent you at closing.
- Obtain an independent home inspection from a qualified inspector BEFORE your close.
- Photograph everything wrong with the home that you put on your punch lists to have full photographic documentation. We did not do this, and regret it now.
- Most important of all: If there are any major issues unresolved, do NOT close until they are resolved.
If you must close, have your attorney place enough funds in escrow to cover the costs of an independent contractor to complete the work.
Kolters Behaviors & Attitudes
Kolter's behaviors & attitudes have enflamed residents, including us. There are certain norms of behavior that are not acceptable:
- Sending workers and subcontractors to someone's home unscheduled and unannounced is not only disrespectful of the homeowner's time and privacy, it is also a security risk. How is a homeowner to know if someone showing up at their front door unannounced is legitimate or not?
- Kolter should inform homeowners immediately when an appointment can not be kept. When an appointment is made with a homeowner to have an employee or subcontractor come over to do work, and that appointment can not be kept for whatever reason, Kolter should inform the homeowner immediately so that the homeowners are not waiting around all day for workers that never show up. Not doing this is disrespectful of the homeowner's time.
- Changing scheduled dates unilaterally is inappropriate and disrespectful. During construction, there are several important dates for the homeowner to meet, in person, with Kolter representatives. When those dates can not be kept, it is critical for Kolter to inform the homeowner immediately and then work with the homeowner to reschedule a mutually agreeable date and time. This is especially critical for those homeowners from out of the area - who have a long distance to travel and may need to make or change reservations to accommodate the changed dates.
- Staff changes that effect the homeowner need to be relayed to the homeowner immediately. When we had the sinkhole, we called our construction manager, and he informed us that he no longer worked for Kolter! Apparently the day we closed was his last day with Kolter, and no-one extended the courtesy of letting us know. In the months following, the person assigned to work with us in addressing issues changed very frequently. We would start to work with one Kolter employee to get contractors scheduled, only to have that employee reassigned to another position and a different staff member assigned to us. This compounded the problem of getting issues addressed and resolved in a timely manner as we were always starting anew with a new Kolter employee.
- Kolter needs to have a full-time manager of this community at the Vice President level. When this community started they had a Vice President who was young and had no prior experience in starting and overseeing a project like this. And when he failed, he was terminated. Yet, his failure was Kolter's fault for putting an inexperienced person in this position and thus setting him up for failure. He was replaced by another Kolter VP who divides his time and attention between Charlotte and South Carolina (where he lives and spends the majority of his time). There's an old Chinese saying, "The fish smells from the head down"
and it is quite appropriate here. This community needs a full-time manager, not a part-timer - someone who is not only accessible to the residents and new homeowners alike, but is also responsive to them in a timely manner.
- Kolter needs to be honest and up-front with homeowners. The most glaring example was our back porch screen door replacement. For several months we were told that "the door is on back-order." When I finally escalated the problem up within Kolter, the door installers came to do the work (unannounced) and when we asked them about the door being on back-order for months, they said they knew nothing about a back-order and, to the contrary, they had plenty of doors and could have come earlier if Kolter had requested it.
Kolter's behaviors are not only unacceptable but demonstrate a lack of respect for the homeowner as well as mismanagement of staffing resources on Kolter's part. Well into Year 2 of development of this community, staffing issues & scheduling should not be persistant issues. Actions rather than excuses should be prevalent at this juncture.