M / I Homes

Good morning! I'm filing this complaint to the corporate office because I am almost done with the building process of a M/I Home in St. Cloud, Florida. The name of the Community is called Sunset Grove, lot #103. I signed a contract to buy an inventory home that had not been built yet at the time around 2/24/2020. I didn't have a whole lot of options to choose from because all of the items were pre-selected prior to the home processing like cabinetry colors, granite tops colors, and tile selection. The only option I had on an inventory home that was far from the beginning of the building process was to change the front door, change the outside color of the home, change the kitchen sink selection, add a soap dispenser and add tile to the rooms. However, that is not my major complaint.

Building started sometime at the end of March or beginning of April. I stop by at least once a week to see the progress of the construction. I immediately noticed a three foot tall lavender color tank in the front of the house. It is called a water valve that was installed by the city. I notified the builder, my real estate agent and the office staff (Rebecca Rivera) about this right away. The water valve was sitting strickly in front of the office and three inches into the driveway. Frank Boscher (Construction Manager), stated that he would request for the city to move this water valve. About 3 months later, the city moved the water valve from the front lawn/driveway, 4 feet to the left and now is in front of the house on the easement, which looks horrible because is directly in front of the door and is the first thing you see when looking at the house. It is ugly, and eyesore and is the only house in the neighborhood with this problem. But that is not the only thing that bothers me, there were some other pipes sticking out of the ground on the front lawn. Now, I can understand these things like cable TV wiring, electrical, etc... have to be in between the lots, but not sitting on the front lawn with meters and everything on there. This means that people will be coming into my lawn continuously to read these meters and destroying my lawn that I'm responsible for maintaining. All I'm asking is for these pipes to be moved 6 to 8 feet to the left and place them in between my lot and the lot next to mine so that I don't have to look at it from my window. Another issue that I'm having is that they are building the homes so close to each other that there is no privacy when taking a shower in the master bath. The next door neighbors window is looking straight into the shower. They don't put stained glass or frost them, they don't provide any kind of privacy and is completely unappealing. At this time, we are scheduled to close sometime in September, and I'm not happy with this product. I can't close on a home that they are not willing to do anything for me as a consumer. The response we receive from the office staff was that they will not move any pipes and that they have no control over this. But, they failed to realize that they told me that these lots were bought from another builder in the community called Century Homes and that all of this was already pre-authorized by the city. However, it is not displayed on the plans that were given to me from the builder. No pipes, no water valve and nothing on the front lawn. Which I should have been made aware of. At this time, I don't even want the house. I just want my deposit of $8, 500 back and let someone else deal with this. It is not fair. Is the only house in the community with this issue.