Pacesetter asks you to pay for their mistakes
I purchased this house (job #11048) from Pacesetter. The builder and I signed both the purchase agreement and addendum #1. This addendum #1 shows the details of the options and upgrades of this house. It includes an allowance towards the rear treatment which amount is $5000. The reason to have this allowance was the builder didn't know how much it would really cost for the rear treatment so they made a best estimation of $5000. So this allowance is an estimate amount but I had to pay in front towards the work to the rear treatment. The unused portion should be credited back to me when the builder have the real amount of the cost. Since my procession date is approaching, the builder was sending me the final statement of adjustment in which it includes no adjustment to this allowance. So I contacted the builder to see what is the real cost to the rear treatment. The builder sent me an addendum #2 in which it says there is a credit amount of $3733.8. However, the builder told me that the amount won't be credited unfortunately. Their explanation is "Addendum 1 shows the original allowance for the rear treatment, addendum 2 shows the subsequent credit for the rear treatment. This credit has been built into the price of the home I negotiated". This is so not true because when I initially signed the contract there wasn't this addendum #2, and no one from Pacesetter mentioned or showed this addendum #2 to me at that time, and no one ever mentioned there won't be a credit either. The most important, there is no where on my contract indicating that their won't be a credit. Thus, Pacesetter just should credit the $3733.8 back to me. The sales manager I dealt with seemed very unreasonable. He admitted Pacesetter made a mistake but he wanted me to give up the credit by signing the addendum #2. Also he said if I don't sign, there won't be a credit either as the credit has been built into the contract price. When I asked him If addendum #2 was signed at the beginning, there won't be a credit to me. Is that correct? He answered YES, IT IS. Then I asked him if the addendum #2 was NOT signed, should there be a credit to me? He answered YES, but in my case NO the bottom line was there won't be a credit forthcoming as that was built into the contract price. If the builder insisted on that credit has been built into my contract price, can you please show me the signed document that proves it. Otherwise, why can't you just do things right and credit me back the unused allowance. The sales manager tried to show me the credit has been built into the contract price when they planned the house on their computer. I don't want to judge if the info on their computer can be trusted or not, but even if it is true, the only thing it tells is that the sales manager proved Pacesetter made a mistake when the contract was signed. But do Pacesetter's customers have obligation to bare a loss for Pacesetter's mistake?
- Approximate cost of services:
- $0.00
- Company Response
Hi Richard,
I do apologize that there has been such confusion surrounding the original rear treatment allowance that was built into your contract. I would like to clarify that you have absolutely not been charged extra for any of the work pertaining to this allowance. I hope I can help explain more clearly so that you can get a better picture of our process.
When we wrote the original contract, we built a $5,000 allowance into the overall cost of the house for the anticipated cost of the rear treatment. Since no actual work had been completed on the rear treatment at this point, an accurate cost could not be calculated. We built in the allowance to ensure that mortgage approval could be obtained with an estimation of the overall cost of the home.
By the time addendum #2 was created, we now had the true cost of the rear allowance. In this addendum, you will see that you were charged the appropriate totals, as well as being credited back the original $5,000 allowance. This is stated in line number 11: “clear allowance for rear treatment initially stated in addendum #1, -$5,000). You will see that the original charge has been directly reversed in this second addendum.
Once again, I would like to apologize if this was not communicated to you effectively upon the signing of the contract. I hope that my explanation has helped clarify.