Rouse Chamberlin, Ltd.

Review: Our house was purchased without the builder disclosing local drainage issues with the property. We come to find an active drain pipe for the storm drains emptying into our back yard, rendering our lot un-usable. This has now been going on for 4 months. We have numerous conversations with the builder. Rouse-Chamberlin claims they did not know of the drain but it is clearly depicted on the phase I drawings which should have been reviewed by them. Our grass was not stabilized causing it to wash away and our land needs re-graded. They re-fuse to re-grade the property and said that they have already seeded. They have seeded but there was no top soil to promote growth or stabilize. We have a drain pipe that is currently active with no action to stop the water from flooding our property.-Desired Settlement: Properly install the pipe as required by an independent engineer. Re-grade the property. Seed and stabilize in the spring. Have the Borough of [redacted] take responsibility for the active storm drain and fix our deed in regards to the evesment.

Business

Response:

November 19, 2013

Dear [redacted]:

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to a complaint submitted on November 14th by one of our company's recent homebuyers. Rouse/Chamberlin Homes prides itself in delivering quality built homes throughout the Delaware Valley.

Over the past few months our project superintendent, warranty supervisor and director of construction have each met individually with the customers at their home to review their concerns. As we understand it, this homeowner is unhappy with the volume of storm water flows in the yard swales located on their homesite. Swales are a commonly used method, to convey surface water flow across a property and all homesites in this neighborhood have yard swales. The specific swales on this homesite appear to be working property as they are stabilized, standing water dissipates within 48 hours and no water has entered the basement of the home.

Unfortunately, the quantity of storm water flowthrough the swales is higher than anyone expected. It turns out, subsequent to the first customer complaint in August, our team discovered an existing storm water discharge pipe located off of their homesite but flowjng onto their homesite, Rouse/Chamberlin Homes had no prior knowledge of this pipe located on a neighboring property as it was hidden by heavy vegetation and was not shown on the approved plans for the lot in question. It appears that the project developer, design engineer, and borough engineer/staff also missed locating this pipe during the design, approval and construction of the development.

On October 29, ZQ13 Rouse/Chamberlin Homes submitted an offer to install a storm pipe on the homesite - at no cost to the customer - to collect the water from the discovered offsite pipe and convey it underground into the street so that the surface flows would be reduced. At this time we are awaiting permission from the homeowner to enter their property to install this pipe.

Let me know If you have any additional questions.

Very truly