KB Home customers in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, so upset with alleged building faults that some want homebuilder to buy back their condos

Audrey Dixon

LOS ANGELES , August 2, 2012 (Industry Intelligence Inc.) – Some KB Home customers in a Florida community are so frustrated with what they claim are construction flaws and damage to their new homes, they want the homebuilder to buy the houses back, the Bradenton Herald reported on Aug. 2.

The residents live in the Willowbrook condo neighborhood in Lakewood Ranch, in Florida’s Manatee County. They claim the condos are suffering from water damage and mold, and have sagging or collapsed balcony floors, according to the Bradenton Herald.

Dan Koehler, who bought his condo three years ago, said he has had a problem with water intrusion, including a falling ceiling on his balcony and a sinking floor.

Sally Urbaniak, who bought her condo two years ago, reportedly has a blue tarp keeping out water. Urbaniak said KB Home had stopped responding to complaints about the complex, and had said they could do nothing about the problems, because of litigation.

Willowbrook residents have complained for years, according to the Bradenton Herald, but they say any fixes KB Home made did nothing to permanently address the problems. One resident said that, if Willowbrook were a car, "it would fall under the lemon law," the Bradenton Herald reported.

Roxanne Miller, who paid cash for her home in 2009, said she had issues with the structural integrity of the floor from the start; it sagged, and within months there was water intrusion.

After her doctor diagnosed Miller as having an allergic reaction to mold, she moved to Chicago.

"KB needs to buy back my house and pay me for everything I lost. I had to sell my car, and had to use all my retirement savings,” Miller told the Bradenton Herald.

Cara Kane, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles-based homebuilder, released a statement saying the company was ”committed to customer satisfaction and has been working diligently to resolve the issues,” the Bradenton Herald reported.

In its statement, KB said it had been working with the Willowbrook Association, which had recently presented the homebuilder with a claim on behalf of its members, and that the company looked “forward to fully and fairly resolving the homeowners' concerns."

In late-breaking news stories on this issue on Aug. 3, the Bradenton Herald said Manatee County building inspectors had deemed as unsafe the balcony of a home inside the Willowbrook condo community, and that more could be ruled unsafe by next week. The finding came shortly after a county building inspector had visited the property Wednesday and noticed signs of deterioration and water intrusion on balconies and surrounding areas, the newspaper said.


The primary source of this article is the Bradenton Herald, Bradenton, Florida, Aug. 2, 2012.

* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.