Indianapolis News and Headlines

Actions

Beazer Homes: Hundreds of complaints flood in

Posted at 8:50 PM, Apr 07, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-07 20:52:49-04

INDIANAPOLIS -- From Whitestown to Avon, Brownsburg to Bloomington and beyond, hundreds of Beazer Homes owners have reported shingle and siding issues.

Reports flooded in to RTV6 following our report about wind damage to two Beazer Homes communities in Avon over the weekend. But Avon wasn't the only community affected.

MORE | Beazer Homes owners say roofs can't stand up to strong wind

At the Estates at Lochaven in Noblesville, more than 20 homes have roof damage from last weekend's excessive winds.

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE PHOTOS OF DAMAGE FROM SATURDAY'S STORM:

For Bruce Childs, it means the third shingle repair for his home.

"The consistent message from the company that's done the repairs is that this is not a good shingle," Childs said. "It's only a 50 mph shingle, and we're having damage at less than 50 mph."

Owner after owner of Beazer Homes tells a similar story about shingles that won't withstand higher winds. Attorney Richard Shevitz filed a class-action lawsuit against Beazer in 2004 over water damage to new homes. He won that case, and says he's been hearing from more owners with shingle issues after RTV6's stories aired this week.

"With the recent disclosure of these problems with primarily shingles and also siding, we're being told that there seems to be some common or uniform defect in the way these homes were constructed," Shevitz said.

A Beazer Homes spokesman told RTV6 the company is currently investigating the shingle issue and contacting affected homeowners in the coming days.

Beazer said the company will do everything to honor warranties and assist homeowners in obtaining repairs, adding that the company "stands by our product."

Call 6 Investigator Rafael Sanchez found Beazer has a troubled history with Hoosier homeowners.

The company first began doing business in Indiana in 2002, when it bought Crossman Homes for more than $600 million.

Before the purchase, Call 6 had been reporting for months about the shoddy building practices of Crossman's sub-contractors. In fact, there was a state investigation at one point because there were 254 different homeowner complaints.

In 2004, Beazer found itself in another case involving construction defects that impacted as many as 2,000 Central Indiana homes under the Trinity Homes name.

The major problem involved bad brick work that allowed water to leak into the homes. A class action lawsuit was filed in Hamilton County, and Beazer set aside $24 million to fix the problem.

By all accounts, Beazer lived up to its previous legal agreements.

Attorney General Greg Zoeller said homeowners with new Beazer issues need to file a complaint with his office.

"If there's warranties, if there's things that they have some remedy at law, we can help at least through the mediation process," Zoeller said. "We also have a homeowner protection unit that deals with these types of problems."

If you'd like to file a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's Office, you can do so here.

-----

Download the new and improved RTV6 app to get the latest news on the go and receive alerts to your phone

 

Sign up to have the latest news headlines delivered straight to your email inbox