Cypress Homes, Inc.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below
On June 19, I filed a complaint about Cyprus Homes IncID On 6/29/I received the following message via Revdex.comMESSAGE FROM BUSINESS: In regards to the customer concern that was submitted on 6/19/(ID: 12215419) to Cypress Homes Inc, we would like inform you that we are aware of the problem and will be sending someone out to re-plant flowers and fix the destroyed garden within the next two weeksI am now writing this on 7/6/and have yet to hear a word from the company not to mention there has been NO attempt at re-planting my garden.Desired Resolution / OutcomeDesired Resolution:Delivery of OrderselectDesired Outcome:Again, I would like the courtesy of contacting me on a timely basis and for them to do what they have promised! NO ONE has even bothered to talk to me about this.
Regards,
Beth Zuehlke

Good Afternoon- We have worked with *** ***We have replanted the wild flowers that were removed close to the renters unit. She has told us she is satisfied

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
On June 16th at 6:50 a.m. I emailed Cassie at Cypress Homes regarding the list of unfinished items.  I did not hear anything from her or anyone else at Cypress until I received a message from the Finish Carpenter at 8:17 p.m. on 7/25 and I returned his call on 7/26 at 6:42 p.m.  I missed his return call at 4:12 p.m. on 8/4 and returned his call back at 7:11 a.m. on 8/5.  He has since come down and corrected the issues with the doors (on 8/5).  On 8/2 at 10:12 a.m. I received a message from Ken at Valley Planing regarding the pantry door.  He called again on 8/3 at 1:15 p.m. and I returned his message on 8/3 at 1:58 p.m.  He came to fix the pantry door on 8/5.  The list below is what I emailed Cassie on 6/16:Front porch leaks - caused siding to pop off - (Nathan has contacted us, but will not repair until the gutter issue is resolved)Front left corner of roof leaks - natural runoff does not provide for water to reach gutterSome gutters are too short for elevationEntry door to house from garage sticks and doorknob does not close properlyTwo bedroom doors do not close properly (one upstairs and one downstairs; one upstairs bedroom door also is cracking ) - the bedroom doors now close as of 8/5, but the cracked wood was not addressed.Cement spray remnants on our pole shed from Carew needs to be removedDrywall screws popping throughAs the finish carpenter was leaving he indicated that the sticking door knob was supposed to be addressed with [redacted] from Valley Planing.  We did not know which contractor was responsible to fix the particular items.  Cypress should have communicated the specific list to each so they could do what they needed when here.
Regards,
[redacted]

In regards to the customer concern that was submitted on 6/19/2017 (ID: [redacted]) to Cypress Homes Inc, we would like inform you that we are aware of the problem and will be sending someone out to re-plant flowers and fix the destroyed garden within the next two weeks. We apologize for any...

inconvenience. Sincerely,  Cypress Homes Inc.1230 W College Ave, Appleton, WI 54914

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

This customer has been contacted multiple time over the last couple weeks by multiple contractors and they have not received any calls back from her.  The contractors are attempting to contact and are not being called back. I called her and left a message as well to see what was going on and...

have not received a call back. We would like to get these items resolved as well, but we do need her cooperation.  Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks[redacted]Cypress Homes[redacted]

Review: Cypress Homes built our home during the summer of 2013. Since the beginning of that process we have had multiple issues with quality of workmanship and with having these issues corrected. Although my concerns have been conveyed to them and they have agreed to come and fix them, they have not completed the work. Many of my concerns and requests have been made several months ago and no attempt has been made by Cypress to correct them. As an example, the following is a list of poor workmanship having to do with the siding of our home.

1. There is a space between the siding and the decorative stone on the home that has not been finished.

2. The window above the garage door has an aluminum covering that is falling off.

3. The front porch underhang is not installed according to code. It vibrates when the wind blows and makes noise.

4. On the east side of the house, the wrong bathroom vent was installed.

5. There is an absence of caulking around the entire house.

6. One of the overhang corners has a gap.

7. The covered back porch has facia that is not nailed in several areas.

8. On the cover of the back porch, the aluminum ceiling is installed crooked in the corner and does not line up when one piece meets another.

9. Facia on the corner of the back porch has gaps in it where raw wood is exposed.

10. On the west side of the house the wrong bathroom vent was installed.

11. The dryer vent is loose.

12. One of the support posts on the patio is crooked.

13. The egress window was installed incorrectly. It should be 4 inches above the grade of the yard.

14. The trim under the gutters is stained with black marks.

15. When the lawn was installed, they neglected to provide for proper drainage. The drainage ditch was ungraded to match the surrounding properties.

16. Siding on the side of the dormer is loose.

On the inside of the home:

1. In the main bathroom, the vanity is cracked.

2. In the master bath, the vanity under the sink has water damage. Cypress indicated they would come and change the vanity but never have.

3. In the kitchen, there is a chip in a cupboard door.

4. The carpeting and laminate flooring are defective and we have been told they would be changed but it has been months and no action has been taken.

5. Some door openings are different heights, even some that are directly next to each other.

6. They installed 3 broken trusses and when I pointed this out, they repaired them. We were told that as a result we would receive a letter of guarantee, which we have not received.

My concerns have not been addressed and in my dealings with Cypress, I have been treated with a lack of respect and sometimes hostility.Desired Settlement: To have these repairs completed within two weeks. For the work to be quality and not require additional repairs and phone calls. We moved into our home 9 months ago today and they have been aware of many of these needs for most of that time.

Business

Response:

The sider has been out to the site and done a walkthrough with the homeowner, the items needed for the repairs are being ordered and the work will be scheduled once we have all the pieces in. issues 1-13 are covered under that. The egress is installed correctly and to code. The manufacture calls out a minimum of 2” above backfill. There is no 4” manufacturing recommendation. I do have an email from our supplier stating this as well. The trim under the gutter is being addressed with the siding repairs. The lawn has been brought to the proper grading, and this has been done for over a month now.

The replacement cabinet parts have been ordered and will be delivered when they are in, and the repairs will be made once they are delivered.

The laminate has already been replaced, and the carpeting was a special order and was set to be delivered the 26th I believe. Once it is delivered it will be installed.

All issues will be and have been addressed for this customer. We have done our best to work with this customer to get all items repaired, and all of them will be addressed.

Thanks

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

A different sider that I've talked to and has seen it, stated that it was the worst siding installation that he has ever seen. I talked with Cypress Homes' customer service representative and she stated that they were negotiating with the original sider to get him to pay for the repairs. To my knowledge they have not yet come to an agreement with him. They don't keep me informed on any of this.

Review: In the spring of 2013 we started to research home builders in the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin, and I contacted Cypress Homes LLC. I sent an email asking about building prices for a ranch style home and within a couple hours I had an email back from [redacted]. [redacted] said their ranch style homes, with a similar floor plan we were interested in, would cost between $105.00-$125.00 per finished square foot. This was in the price range that we wanted to spend, so I emailed [redacted] a floor plan we were interested in from Signature Homes website that had a 1,600 square foot design. He said that Cypress Homes could design a house for us for around $200,000.

The Cypress Homes website stated other benefits to building with them. It states they will sell your existing home, but when I inquired about selling our home in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin [redacted] said it was out of their range for selling homes. According to the Cypress Homes website, “Free short-term housing” would be offered to those building a house with Cypress Homes. This was appealing to us because we had a very short time frame from selling our home before moving to the Fox Valley. Building a new house takes time, and we believed Cypress had our best interest in mind when they told us they would help us find a place during the construction of our house. This all was adding up as the perfect fit for our family's needs so we set up a meeting with [redacted].

Our meeting with [redacted] provided us with confidence that Cypress Homes would build a home within our budget and time constraints. According to [redacted] they do not employ any of the skilled labor and they work solely with contractors. We viewed two of the homes they were currently having built by outside contractors. One home was very close to being finished and the other was still under construction. Both houses peaked our interest, and we were impressed by the detail their contractors put into each home. Our next step according to [redacted] was to sign an agreement for Cypress Homes to design our home from the Signature Homes floor plan, which we would incur the costs of design work if we choose not to build with Cypress Homes. We signed the agreement based on a home around 1,600 square feet being designed through Cypress Homes for $200,000.00.

After this meeting we learned about their false advertisement about Cypress Homes providing free housing while they build your home. Instead [redacted] offered to give us a credit for about $1,500.00 while the home was being built. He told us that the credit was to offset higher rent charges we would probably pay due to short term leasing. He then said that they would find us short term leasing while our house was being built. However he was never able to come up with any places that met our short term housing requirements. The places he did offer did not accept dogs, have short term leases or were far from where our daughter could attend school once we moved into our new home. We eventually had to find our own rental place in less than three weeks before we closed on our existing home in Sun Prairie.

The house design came back within two weeks of the first meeting and was at 1,884 square feet. In mid May we met with [redacted] to go over the design of the home and discussed specification for the home to obtain a bid from contractors. We stressed our budget and need to stay within the budget. We expressed that quality was important but we did not need high end products in the house.

The meeting to discuss the bid of the home took a couple weeks to set up due to scheduling conflicts, the selling of our home, and purchasing of our new lot. The bid proposal meeting was originally scheduled for June 18, 2013, but due to moving on June 22, 2013 we were unable to meet on that date. I had called [redacted] to find out what the cost of the home was bidding at in order to make adjustments prior to the meeting if need be in order stay at budget. It was crucial to us that we start building the home as soon as possible as we were in a short term lease, and we wanted to address any challenges as efficiently as possible. However, [redacted] did not offer any information regarding contract bids or what the house was going to cost prior to the meeting. He did not even mention if it was higher or lower than our budget.

When we arrived on Tuesday at Cypress Homes LLC, June 25, 2103 for the meeting [redacted] was not ready to meet with us, and we had to wait 45 minutes. This seemed really odd to us, as [redacted] had previously been available during the process to answer questions up until the last week and was flexible meeting with us on the weekends. When [redacted] finally met with us he said “I am not sure what happened but the house did not come back near the price I was hoping for.” This did not set a good tone for the next 30 to 45 minutes while [redacted] went page by page through the bid specifications. He mentioned several times that certain bids were not firm and could be higher. He finally got to the cost of the house, which was 20 percent higher than we had given him for a budget. He again said he did not know why the cost was so high. In addition, he had a page and a half of optional price additions to the bid proposal, which included many of the items we had requested to be in the original bid of the house. There was not one option or suggestion on how to reduce the cost to work within our budget.

I told [redacted] that I was very disappointed with this meeting. We expressed that we could not afford the house at that cost and needed to know what we could be done to adjust it. [redacted] said he did not know what to tell us. I told him he had until Friday, June 28 to fix this problem. As we were leaving [redacted] did not try to stop us, and did not offer any resolutions so we left the meeting. [redacted] did not reach out to us after the meeting and did not get back to us on June, 28 as I requested. This told us that Cypress Homes did not want our business and decided not to work with us. If they wanted our business, they would have contacted us immediately to tell us options for building the home with them. However, when a company does not contact you that means they do not want your business. Within a week, we began working with Signature Homes, who understood our time and budget needs.

On July 23, [redacted] finally reached out to me by email for the first time since our meeting on June 25. This is nearly a month later and hardly an active pursuit for obtaining our business. [redacted] was aware that we were under a time constraint as well, as we were renting an apartment for just six months. In the email he wrote ”I just thought I would check and see if you guys have gotten numbers from any other builders yet. Looking at our numbers, I don't think we would be able to get the price down to $200,000.00 we were targeting, but I do think we would be able to get the cost down considerably with a few changes. Please let me know if that is something you wish to pursue, if not I understand.”

The next time I heard from [redacted] was on August 7, and in this email he asked us to pay for the design work for the house they had designed for us. On October 4, I received another email from [redacted] asking for payment. On October 21 we received a certified letter stating that if we did not make the payment by November 1 they would take us to small claims court. The Cypress Homes letter states that they tried to reach us via phone in addition to the emails, but I never once had a voice mail or missed call from [redacted] or anyone at Cypress Homes. At this point I reached out to our attorney and he suggested that we offer to split the fee with Cypress Homes since the design and cost of construction was not in the budget we had given them. Both parties had responsibility for the house not being built.

On Thursday October 31, I called [redacted], which was the first time I talked to him since June 25.. I explained to [redacted] that I had consulted with our attorney and I made the offer as our attorney suggested. [redacted] said that he would discuss this with [redacted] and get back to me. I encouraged [redacted] to explain to [redacted] the situation in the fullest detail and that if I had to pay the full amount I would file a detailed complaint to the Revdex.com. During the phone conversation [redacted] also said that he thought there was more room in our budget since we had made more money on the sale of our existing home. I asked [redacted] where that came from because we did not make more money on the sale of our house, and I never once told him that. The email from July 23 proves that I never had a discussion with [redacted] about having a higher budget to work with. [redacted] responded that his boss was not willing to split the fee so we paid the full amount.

We feel since Cypress Homes was not willing to build the home within the $200,000.00 budget that Cypress Homes should be half responsibility for the design fee. [redacted] never once told us that their numbers would come close to 20 percent higher than our budgeted number at any point while they were obtaining bids. In addition, we had asked for a home be designed at 1,600 square feet and they charged us for design fees for a home that was considerably higher at 1,884 square feet.

Cypress Homes did not provide the service that we asked for or they promised. Instead they took the liberty to design a home much larger in size than our budget with specifications that were not firm. In addition, [redacted] could not explain why the bid of the home was higher when meeting with us or within days of the bid meeting. Consequently Cypress Homes asked us to pay for their mistakes and laziness in bidding a house for us. Yes, we signed a contract saying we would pay the design fees if we did not build with Cypress Homes, but at the time of signing we believed Cypress Homes had every intention of wanting to obtain our business and work with us. Essentially, Cypress Homes chose not to build a home for us. We do not want others to go through the challenges we had with Cypress Homes. Cypress Homes needs to acknowledge their short comings and treat customers with respect.

I have records of emails, copy of the detailed proposal, and screen shots of the www.callcypresshomes.com website as detailed proof to back up my complaint.Desired Settlement: I wish to have a full refund in the amount of $942.00 that we paid to Cypress Homes LLC on October 31, 2013.

Business

Response:

First off I would like to say that I am truly disappointed that Cypress Homes was not able to build a new home for [redacted]. That was always my hope and intention. The account of how things transpired given by [redacted] touched on a wide range of issues. I will do my best to address each of them below.

Review: Continual delays and miscommunication with company. Signed contracts to build home in March. We are in a turn key contract, so they purchased the lot for us-with the instructions to have approved drainage plans by us prior to purchance-this was not done and lot was closed on anyways. Then, Scheduled to breakground on lot May 1st with completion date of last week of August 2013. This was managed/scheduled by [redacted] their project manager that then abruptly was no longer working for the company, and we where then assigned a new project manage named [redacted]. He haulted the project, stating that the location of the home would have put the home at risk for poor drainage plans, and possible foundation/structural issues. The project manager stated we still would need 50-75 loads of fill d/t drainage and lot issues. Discussed with Cypress was told they were going to cover this. Then when asked to get this in writing the tune changed to only will cover if they can get it for free?! So after 2 months we finally broke ground on June 27. Then plans were not updated from the begining, a egreess window was installed in home when it was ordered to be deleted months prior-Cypress agreed to pay for this, but not pay for a window well cover-to protect our children from falling in. Then was told the shingles were being installed last Saturday, drove to site-no workers, no shingles (which the home had been up with window, and tar paper on home for over a week). Called [redacted], project manager, message stated he no longer worked for Cypress homes?! Called [redacted] from sales, who didn't know he had quit, called [redacted] the owner-stating will handle this on Monday. Monday comes-she states I will have a schedule of home build by the end of the day-still none. I had also requested to meet and talk with [redacted] the owner that week, or set up apt with hime to call me to explain what is going on and who is handling our build. He has not yet contacted me know have I gotten a final schedule of our home build.

We are currently in a rental home in Sheboygan, are building in Plymouth. Are kids are starting school this fall in Plymouth, which now our home will not be complete as previously told by school starting. So we have to drive over 30 miles daily to bring our children to school. Interest rates have gone up over the 4% we had worked our with our lender when we started the build. We have contacted Cypress about paying our rent and other types of compensation for their poor communication and lack of compotence in our build. And they have refused.Desired Settlement: 1. Would like rent paid for September since was suppose to be in home Sept 1st $1300.00

2. Letter stating they are going to pay for the fill for our home originally discussed.

3. Closing costs paid for in amount of $12,000 d/t stress and inconvience caused by poor communication, errors, unexplained delays.

Business

Response:

I

am unclear why my name is on this complaint as I do not own the company

and am not a sales representative for the below client. However, the

delays to their start was due to placement of the home on their lot. We

had to take the extra time to position the home correctly on the lot to

avoid additional fill charges. We have given the client schedules for

them to follow along. We currently will not offer any compensation as

construction can have delays. We are currently helping them in another

situation that has arose on their end. I would hope they would be

appreciative of that.

I was recently involved with Cypress Homes for renting a townhome. Between not calling in the time frame they said they would and giving false impressions about the upfront costs of renting, the experience was horrible. I never recieved once recieved a call when she said she would call. One incident, I waited an entire week for a phone call that was promised to be made in that week and then a whole additional week passed after that with no contact. Also, we were lead to believe that there would be no additional security deposit after paying the $200 holding fee and when it came time to sign the lease, there was a $900 additional securtiy deposit plus some other various fees which equaled to appoximately $1000 additional that we would have to pay before we could move in. That's $1000 more than we budgeted with only about a month try to come up with it. With trying to sell our house, we would already have a mortgage and rent for the first couple months and there was no way we could come up with that much money in that short of a time frame. When I told them what we were led to believe and that we felt it was cause for refunding out deposit, they pretty much called us liars (the exact words were "she would not have said that") and said to pay the extra fees or forfeit the deposit. We made our situation apparent from the get go and were of the impression that they would work with us. But when it came down to it, they were all talk and no walk. They over promised and under delivered. I would not recommend them to anyone. It was a horrible experience and now I have to try to explain to my 5 year old that we will not be moving into the cool apartments right next to the park that he was so excited to move to. (How else do get a 5 year old to be willing to pack up his toys?)