Early last year, my family and I found toxic mold in our 4.5 year old home. My wife, 3 year old, 5 year old, and I all had unexplained medical issues that we could not figure out. After finding the mold, it all made sense. We moved out of our home, our builder told us they fixed the issue, and told us to move back in. Upon moving back in, we all began enduring terrible health conditions all over again and we discovered the home is literally inundated in mold due to multiple construction defects including areas of the home that were not caulked and grossly inadequate attic ventilation. We moved out of our home again, and have not returned in over a year.

The builder has washed their hands of us, and the legal battle may take 3 years to complete. State farm rejected our claim. We have racked up over $50,000 in medical costs thus far, and had to replace all of our belongings. We need about $250,000 - $300,000 to repair our home so we can safely move back into our home.

We have several hundred thousand in equity, but I show very little income on my tax returns (I run the Houston office of a national brokerage company, and run a commercial development business), so I cannot simply get a cash out refi, or a HELOC. Can anyone help me find a way to get the capital we need to repair our home? Please direct message me and I can provide additional information. Thank you!

Oh **** !! Can Habitat for Humanity pitch in somehow?

I'm all ears, but have no idea how to start that. Do you have a contact that I should reach out to?

Just an fyi

I see and hear a ton of patients that want to blame mold exposure to their health concerns, but rarely is there any valid justification to their claims.

Saying this, make sure you have verified your health issues are indeed caused by any possible mold exposure. Your family doc probably isn't the person I would seek their opinion. I would discuss with an academic allergist/immunologist - not someone who will try to talk you into immunotherapy, before you start spending a lot of money on this issue.

Good luck.

Thank you - we have been to a specialist in mold, so we feel confident we have been given good medical advice.

No way I'm moving in to that house a third time.

Pay quarterly taxes, and keep an accurate record of your income...

Seriously. If you're self employed, and you don't pay quarterly, AND you don't utilize a financial planner or wealth manager, you're gonna have a bad time

I don't really understand why you can't take out a HELOC (although I don't know what % of equity you have). If you've got a couple hundred grand in equity in your home, I think might have a shot because it's a loan on leveraged in the equity of your home, not your income. I'd explore that further. Have you been rejected on this front? Have you explored HELOCs with local banks? Get away from the big guys.

You could look into hard money or private funds. There's typically less restrictions on these types of funds, but they have higher origination fees and interest rates.

Maybe a construction loan?

I pray you find a solution!

They still have to verify their ability to repay the loan. And it sounds like the lack of income shown on taxes is a problem.

schwabbin said:

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They still have to verify their ability to repay the loan. And it sounds like the lack of income shown on taxes is a problem.

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If this is the case, they need to look local - someone who might do a HELOC on equity and bank statements rather than tax returns. Smaller local banks and credit unions can owork on different parameters. On the other hand, can you take a loan from your retirement, or do you have a rich uncle?

I'd also look to see if the local, state or federal government has any programs.

The nuke is to sell it. This happened in my neighborhood. A woman had lyme disease, and they had a bunch of mold in their home. They ended up selling it to a builder. Probably didn't get what they wanted from it, but at the same time, they unlocked the equity they had in order to put a down payment on a new home.

Again, all this really sucks. I hope you find a solution that works for you and your family.

Best of luck, I think folks above have given some solid advice that it may be best to move on. But I am curious on several areas about how the builder determined they can walk away.

What was the source of the construction issue that led to the mold? Attic ventilation should be something easily validated as causing / contributing the issue or not. Did you engage a home inspector or mold inspector to inspect home and conduct the mold testing?

What was the issue with the caulking (windows, doors, roofing)? Was there water damage that led to the mold? The builder may be stonewalling you as they would seem, based on information you provided, to be liable for the construction defects and resulting damage to your home (and to you). But the builder had a general liability insurance carrier and could have limited their exposure to their deductible. If they failed to honor warranty (written or implied) there are additional claims you may be successful in making.

Have you ever engaged an attorney on this? My experience has been that the builder will not notify their GL carrier or even take a claim seriously until they receive a formal notice of claim from an attorney representing the homeowner. Once that happens, the process can be very quick to reach a settlement.

On the surface you seem to have a valid, and very serious claim. Back to the top on cutting ties with the house, I would do this regardless of any settlement or corrective actions by builder. The house will haunt you.

fka ftc said:

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What was the source of the construction issue that led to the mold? Attic ventilation should be something easily validated as causing / contributing the issue or not. Did you engage a home inspector or mold inspector to inspect home and conduct the mold testing?

What was the issue with the caulking (windows, doors, roofing)? Was there water damage that led to the mold? The builder may be stonewalling you as they would seem, based on information you provided, to be liable for the construction defects and resulting damage to your home (and to you). But the builder had a general liability insurance carrier and could have limited their exposure to their deductible. If they failed to honor warranty (written or implied) there are additional claims you may be successful in making.

Have you ever engaged an attorney on this? My experience has been that the builder will not notify their GL carrier or even take a claim seriously until they receive a formal notice of claim from an attorney representing the homeowner. Once that happens, the process can be very quick to reach a settlement.

On the surface you seem to have a valid, and very serious claim. Back to the top on cutting ties with the house, I would do this regardless of any settlement or corrective actions by builder. The house will haunt you.

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We engaged an engineer and an architect (more qualified than a basic home inspector) who did analysis on typical building sciences issues, and they determined the ventilation in the attic was not sufficient for the home. We also engaged a mold inspector who found mold inside the walls in the home - most of these walls did not contain any plumbing.

The windows that were caulked, only had interior grade silicone. Other windows were missing caulking. the builder claimed they used a BASF product on the windows, which we have proven to be false. Builder is willing to caulk the windows, but they will not fix the additional issues it has caused.

We did engage attorneys who were only moderately helpful. We asked the attorneys to counter the builder's pitiful proposal, but the attorneys refused to even counter the builder. Seemed very suspect to us. I think we had the wrong attorneys and we need a new one - open to suggestions! Please PM me with some attorneys who aren't scared to go to bat against a builder.

Being in the residential construction business, my referrals would be more applicable to the builder side, though some firms have homeowner AND builder clients.

Should be a minimal spend to discuss the high level aspects of your claim and you have already done some of the leg work that you can provide to the new attorney for review.

They should be able to tell you pretty quick if your case is winnable / worth it.

I do not have DM. You can email me at user name @ g m a i l .com - remove space in username.

I emailed you, but may have gotten the address wrong - can you confirm you received my message?