Is traditions of America a good builder?

I am super disappointed in all of my dealings in attempting to build a home with Traditions of America in East Petersburg, PA; including your salesperson Nancy S******, and your Vice President of Marketing Carolyn Morrison. I have cancelled my contract. I am requesting all of my down money back, except a generous $1000, I am willing to provide for administrative costs. Your company has spent no money in materials or construction of this house and has not even broken ground to build the house. Good business practice would be to return all of my money except $1000.00. Please note: I know you will get another down payment to cover your overall overhead costs for the neighborhood development/construction from the next buyer. What happened to make me cancel my contract with Traditions of America? First, Nancy was anxious to get my down payment money, which I provided in March 2020. Nancy, however, was not able to tell me any of the extra costs associated with my particular home, other than your pre-printed cost sheet which contained some of the costs for "extra" features. I was unable to find out any extra costs of items that I wanted, such as a porch roof until four months later at my "design" appointment. It was also absurd that once I added the features of a "typical" home, my cost added up to over $150,000+ in additional fees. Nancy either blatantly lied or conveniently omitted the details of what I might pay, yet, I was required to provide a 5% deposit to hold the lot, and a place in line for a design meeting. Here are some of outrageous markups that were quoted after my initial design appointment on July 22. For example; I added a fireplace. The cost sheet stated $4516. Actual charge quoted at $4516 plus an additional $2,931.00 because I requested a "modern" surround. Wow! Some markup. Second I signed a contract, and chose a lot based on the marketing materials; which were a blatant lie. The marketing materials said the lot backed to "open space." It did not. The lot backed up to the back side of 12 town homes. -- not open space! So I had to change my lot, which cost me an extra $17,000 because the new lot had a $32000 premium. Another 5% down on this amount as well, which was totally unnecessary. Third, I wanted to make sure I could put a porch and landscaping in the back of the house. I made an appointment with your sales person, Nancy, who was eager to sell me the house, but could not answer if I could put my own landscaping/porch or porch roof on the back of the house. First she said TOA could put a porch on and I could later add the roof after settlement. Then she stated that I had to wait until I went to my design appointment -- which, again, couldn't be scheduled for more than FOUR months after I signed the contract. Nancy also told me I was not to contact the designer, she had to contact me. The sales person also conveniently failed to mention that the back yard items(porch and porch roof) I wanted would require me to pay an extra $2000 for a custom house-- I later found this out by calling the designer; which I was told by Nancy not to do. Also, I would not be given any costs estimates for these “custom” extras, which were not on the preprinted list, until the design meeting as well. I was super frustrated and called the designer, even though I was told not to call her. After checking with the designer, I also found out that because I needed a custom home, my settlement would be backed up by three months from the original estimate date. I was asked to sign a contract that it would be backed up. Again, super frustrating that I learned this three months after signing the contract. Fourth, The Designer said I could not put a roof on the patio on the back of my house, using my own vendor after the house was built because of the local Township Rules-- this was a total lie. The township said I could put a roof over an existing patio. TOA management just wanted to up charge me by requiring me to use TOA’s third party contractor to do the work. Fifth, At the design meeting, I was told I could put landscaping in the back yard, but the HOA would not take care of it. Something TOA boasts in the marketing materials-- that you have no maintenance; carefree living!!-- Again, blatant lie and mot mentioned by the salesperson!!! . TOA also does not let you choose what plants are planted in the front of your house. Again, not mentioned until the design meeting. Sixth, I needed a bigger garage because my boyfriend's truck would not fit in the Model that I chose. I was told I would need to buy another more expensive model with a bigger garage, and a different lot because the lot I had chosen was not big enough for the larger more expensive model. Oh, and by the way, the bigger lot was $12,000 more. I did not want to pay for a more expensive model and an additional $12000 for a different lot. I was also told, I could not make just the garage larger, I had to make the whole house 2 feet bigger, which was estimated at about $16,000 from documents the sales person sent to me. I decided to make the current model choice larger. Later, when I receive the cost is was quoted at $30,000. A lot more than $16,000. Again, information that I should have had up front, before I put any money down, this information was not provided to me. Before my design meeting on July 22, I went to look at my lot and there was a 20 foot wide drainage ditch dug behind the house. This ditch will come right to the porch. I certainly do not want to look at a big drainage ditch that will not be maintained. Again, not told about the drainage ditch by the salesperson. Then, she lied again by saying the ditch probably won’t be there after the house is built. I am sorry, but I doubt a contactor would waste time and money building a 20 foot ditch that wouldn’t be there later on. When I went to the design meeting, it was obvious that the house was so basic that anything included in a "typical" house, was an extra charge -- for example, an exit door at the side of the garage was not included in the base house. Charge for that was $1,589. The front door I chose had a window and was an extra $2,254.-- How can a door cost that much more than the “base” model door????? Only cheap windows were included in the base house. I feel your company uses a blatant "bait and switch" methodology. Your marketing materials show pictures of a beautiful house, but ABSOLUTLEY none of the items in that house are included in the initial price. Again, not stated anywhere. Also, there were no models built when I bought the house. Also, after the design meeting, I found out that all of the vendors that you need to choose materials from to design the house, were at least 50 miles away, such as Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and one was even in Virginia-- the house was to be built in Lancaster County PA. In addition there was no showroom set up to even look at materials because it hadn't been built yet. I would not have bought this house had I known about all of the extra costs, blatant lies and omissions about building the house and lot. I am requesting all of my down money back, except a generous $1000, I am willing to provide for administrative costs. Your company has spent no money in materials or construction of this house and has not even broken ground to build the house. Good business practice would be to return all of my money except $1000.00. Please note: I know you will get another down payment to cover your overall overhead costs for the neighborhood development/construction from the next buyer.

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