My parents are having a home built that is under construction, with framing, rough-ins & roof completed & windows & doors installed. It was noticed during a 3rd party inspection that it appeared that post-tensioning of the slab was never done. In digging into it, this was confirmed. A couple of days ago I was doing a walk-through and noticed a significant crack. I swear the crack has gotten wider, one side is raised and it is FULL of debris as the house is filthy. Here is the album of pictures. https://photos.app.goo.gl/YBaxkjUgewhqtPTA9

I've made calls and lined up an independent PE to provide an analysis, understanding that the EOR is paid by the builder. The GC is rushing to get this behind him and continue on and let me know this that he has lined up tensioners. The city did get involved yesterday , after I brought it to their attention and they put a stop work order on the house until the engineer agrees to do an evaluation and provide them with a letter saying he believes it will still perform as intended even with this delay/premature loading/ crack, I am grateful for the time this buys me but I am sure he will write the letter and move on to the next job.

Primary question: Can this oversight be properly corrected? What issues might arise in the future if the GC gets his way with tensioning it now and continuing on? Would you let your elderly parents close on this house?

They're 75, and the concern is that they're buying a lemon. worries about future resale if a (for example) 5 year old house has a cracked slab...constant drywall cracks, but nothing "structurally" wrong that the builder will correct under warranty. (any recs for a good real estate attorney? lol).

Sorry you're dealing with all of this.

Concrete usually has a window they try to post tension during. Too early and you'll just squish soft concrete. Too late and the concrete will start to shift and crack as it experiences tension while settling. A professional engineer is going to be able to tell you if they can still tighten it up and then skim coat/patch wherever the cracks are.

The professional engineer from the company might not sign off on it. He'll be pressured to. But you might require some extra language explicitly making them sign off while understanding the delay. Just like you said, next stop is a real estate attorney.

Well, the builder violated the stop work order and tensioned the slab yesterday. Waiting on info from city inspector, builder... also waiting to hear if my engineer will be allowed access to do an evaluation.

the crack did close but there is still a lip in spots where one side is raised higher than the other.


The attorney I spoke with yesterday indicated it would be smarter for my parents to walk away (lose 18k) because any suit was going to be more than that and drag out 2 years.

or they could just move into the house and always be waiting for problems. Or sell it immediately. Not sure if that would be a loss more than 18k or not...

I would get the engineer's evaluation and file it with the city before you walk away (if that's what you want to do.) A builder that violates a stop work order will 100% sell this house to someone else without disclosing what they did. If you're sure that you aren't going to pursue litigation you can also tell your story to as many review sites/people as you want to.

I'm not a lawyer,... but for $18k it feels like it wouldn't be hard to rack that up with a lawsuit. You can take some solace in knowing that if an engineer says the slab is trashed and you file it with the city the builder might be stuck much more than $18k. They would probably have to find an engineer that would say the slab is ok (which they likely would have done if your parents decided to try to work through the issue.) If you hadn't noticed that the slab wasn't tensioned, they would have sold your parents that house without doing it at all,... imagine what else they may have screwed up.

I don't have any idea what the remedy would be if the slab was beyond repair. Seems like demo and start over would be the only option.

I don't have much to add to this other than I wouldn't trust that GC on another single item. The mess up is the mess up. It shouldn't have happened and that's a pretty basic and major oversight. But he went to a whole other level by trying to brush this issue off with an elderly couple and then blatantly ignoring the Stop Work order. Wow. I'd definitely keep the city in the loop so they are watching this guy because I'd guess he's pulling **** like this on other jobs as well.

IDK…I know we don't have all the facts but I'd think violation of a stop work order would be a prima facie case of deceptive trade practice entitling them to attorney's fees if they prevail. I'd have them talk to another lawyer.

Mr. AGSPRT04 said:

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IDK…I know we don't have all the facts but I'd think violation of a stop work order would be a prima facie case of deceptive trade practice entitling them to attorney's fees if they prevail. I'd have them talk to another lawyer.

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Violating a stop work order seems like a really great way to get the city inspectors to crawl right up your ass and make a home for the remainder of the build.

What about strong threats to try and get back their 18k and walking? I wouldn't want the house either, but I would try and fight to get that money. One benefit if the hot market may be the builder knows they can sell it easily if you walk. I would pressure them on that with the threat od broadcasting the situation all over social media and such. Often that seems to get their attention better than lawsuit threats.

Curious as to what the city will do about them violating the stop order. What's the point if they can with no penalty?

Posting to follow. builder seems sketchy and i hope they get whatever negative things they deserve instead of being able to skate and your parents being the ones who are saddled with the BS.

I'm lost here: is there not a warranty on the new home construction that included the slab?

Also, is the 18K that allegedly won't be gotten back in the hands of the contractor or an escrow agent? If the latter, get the money and leave. Make the city aware of the violation and get a lawyer to write a very harsh demand letter. What they did may or may not invoke a specific Texas cause of action but it isn't something they want to admit to doing.

I would move on to another house but he's not keeping my 18K.

91AggieLawyer said:

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I'm lost here: is there not a warranty on the new home construction that included the slab?

Also, is the 18K that allegedly won't be gotten back in the hands of the contractor or an escrow agent? If the latter, get the money and leave. Make the city aware of the violation and get a lawyer to write a very harsh demand letter. What they did may or may not invoke a specific Texas cause of action but it isn't something they want to admit to doing.

I would move on to another house but he's not keeping my 18K.

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Definitely seems it'd be within their rights to get the $18k back here.

I agree with all your points. I think the legal counsel OP sought is saying that it would be more than18k in legal costs to fight this and so its just not worth it.

I don't know about that. I, like most other angry clients, would fight it on principle. Which the lawyer would be happy to get paid for.

Could this go to small claims? The value of the house exceeds small claims, but I thought texas just raised the limit in small claims to 20k. So the amount in dispute is under.

Get a quote from a foundation company to fix it with a lifetime warranty. Present it to builder with the option to walk away without $18k penalty.

I think the issue is that there may not be a fix because the timeline was all screwed up with the tensioning.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Get a quote from a foundation company to fix it with a lifetime warranty. Present it to builder with the option to walk away without $18k penalty.

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It doesn't matter what a foundation company says. It matters what the engineer says. If they're confident that it will be ok after being tensioned this late I still wouldn't keep the house. I can't imagine that they're going to be happy about putting tension on cracks that were packed with debris.

Unless the funds are in escrow pending the completion of an agreement that the contractor has broken it doesn't really matter what someone is entitled to. If the builder wants to make recovering that difficult (which doesn't make logical sense, but that's not what governs many people) they can.

I'm definitely not a lawyer, so anything they say would take precedent but many lawsuits happen specifically because one party won't give the other party what they're entitled to. The builder should give the money back and let them walk away without any financial penalty, and if the engineer says the slab can't be fixed they would (probably) tear down the house and start again... They may also make the OP's parents fight for the money and shop around until they find an engineer that's willing to say that the slab is fine.

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It matters what the engineer says. If they're confident that it will be ok after being tensioned this late I still wouldn't keep the house.

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So it doesn't matter what the engineer says.

In the end, the builder must present a properly tensioned slab. Their engineer will will say it's fine. If OP wants to walk away, then he needs to find a foundation company (with an engineer) who says it's not and the cost to do it right. That's what this boils down to.

Present the high cost to the builder and offer to walk away (with his $18k) and let the builder pass the house onto some other person.

Sea Speed said:

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I think the issue is that there may not be a fix because the timeline was all screwed up with the tensioning.

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Everything can be fixed for the right price.

Yes there will be a 10 year warranty on the structural components of the home. Like most warranties it is ETREMELY difficult to get anything covered. They won't give us the warranty language until closing...but I have a friend who is going to send me a copy of hers tonight, so that will be an interesting read. The builders write everything in their favor, so I expect nothing of benefit to my parents here. The Post-tension slab is designed to all move as one during any expanding or contracting of soils. so any sheet rock cracks or sticky doors/windows are likely going to be written off to the slab performing as intended.

If you were to sketch out the slab, how many cracks do you see now? Because thats how many pieces this slab is now in. It was meant to be tensioned as one unit that can resist bending and move as one piece.

If the slab is completely in two, that slab even when tightened can now move in two planes. If settling occurs under one section but not the other, its not going to bend across the whole foundation and resist settling, its going to just bend across that crack section like a hardback book. It'll move up or down or away at that crack line. It can't transmit forces across the concrete, just the tension cables (which you can't push on ropes or transmit bending through).

Your settling is going to happen primarily early on as the earth reacts to more weight. That should be obvious to the house, but thats just asking for a headache to wait for 2 years.

The builder is hoping they can say whatever they need to get you to sign off now, knowing that each passing day after signing is going to be harder for your to prove anything was their fault. Has a builder ever fixed a foundation correctly after the house has been built? Anyone who could fix it correctly would have done it correctly initially.

This can be fixed. They don't rip down every house that gets tensioned late. If they truly can't live with it, just finish out the build and flip it. I can't imagine losing money in this current environment.
Also, the stop work order was for any new work, right? As in, we've found these issues you need to address before you can Insulate and close up walls. How did they violate the stop work order?

Found the shady builder

Would not let my parents buy this or lose $18k

Sea Speed said:

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Found the shady builder

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Ha! Definitely hadn't had my coffee and didn't read the full OP. I get the SWO now and the pics definitely indicate some big problems. I do believe the issue is fixable and working WITH the builder is the best option rather than getting the city to shut down the jobsite.

Agzonfire said:

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Sea Speed said:

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Found the shady builder

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Ha! Definitely hadn't had my coffee and didn't read the full OP. I get the SWO now and the pics definitely indicate some big problems. I do believe the issue is fixable and working WITH the builder is the best option rather than getting the city to shut down the jobsite.

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See this is just handwaiving. What do you think, technically, that builder can do to remediate the situation that would bring the foundation back to its original integrity? They are absolutely trying to pass off an inferior project.

AgProgrammer said:

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I don't have much to add to this other than I wouldn't trust that GC on another single item. The mess up is the mess up. It shouldn't have happened and that's a pretty basic and major oversight. But he went to a whole other level by trying to brush this issue off with an elderly couple and then blatantly ignoring the Stop Work order. Wow. I'd definitely keep the city in the loop so they are watching this guy because I'd guess he's pulling **** like this on other jobs as well.

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Yep. **** up in uno, **** up in omnibus. This builder seems like trash, and I wouldn't trust anything they're doing after all that.

This right here is an example of why 99.5% of residential contractors are trash.

They absolutely screwed up, and instead of owning the mistake and coming to the clients and being open about working with the engineer and trying to fix it, they instead go against a city stop work-order and tension the slab anyway. Anyone want to place bets on whether or not the construction debris was cleaned out of the cracks beforehand? These guys deserve to be put through every legal ringer possible and the PM deserves to be fired yesterday. If you haven't already, you should be going up the chain of command at that company to see if anyone in the organization has any integrity and willingness to address this issue correctly.

The fact that your parents are elderly means this is going to most likely be your headache to deal with in the future if they follow through with this house. While you will have a warranty, as others have mentioned, what do you think the likelihood is that this builder is going to come back 7 years from now and acknowledge an issue and fix it on their dime?

I could continue on with my rant, but I'll just say that I'm sorry you're being put in this position by a POS builder. I'm sure your parents have already picked out everything for their new home and have been looking forward to moving into the new place since they signed their contract. Now you're being put in a position of having to emotionally detach yourself from the home and make the best business decision you can, knowing that you can't trust the builder a single bit.

Also, when was the slab poured? Do you know the breaks on the cylinders (what strength it hit and when)? And what work had been done on it so far and what materials were stored on it? I think an untensioned slab can support some weight, but definitely not the entire house. Some basic framing likely isn't going to hurt it, but your pictures showed a fully installed roof and I think I saw drywall stacked in one.

Some shrinkage cracking will occur and close up when tensioned, but that assumes the tensioning happened correctly. The slab needs to still be somewhat plastic for the cracks to fully close, get squished together, and form a cohesive unit as the concrete continues to harden. Wait too long and you're basically just pulling together pieces of hardened concrete instead of squishing together hardening playdoh. Not an engineer, but everything I've ever heard or read says tensioning ASAP after the concrete hits 2000 psi, typically 4-7 days after pour. Tensioning after 10 days is probably too late. This looks like way later than 10 days.

The EOR or whoever signed off on the slab design should have put instructions on when and how to tension the slab. The builder may or may not want to give you this info because he probably didn't follow it. It definitely seems like there is ample evidence of negligence and defects. They almost certainly did not follow the specs and violated common and accepted practices.

I think the biggest hang up is that many residential builders basically have a get out of jail free card in their contracts where they can back out for any reason. They may want to walk away and blame OP's parents, hoping they don't want to go through the hassle of suing them for any deposits, fees, etc. OP's parents may want to sue first for beach of contract based on third party engineer's report. I'd ask that lawyer if he's got room for another case and go after attorney's fees.

TBF, the stop work order could have been to stop all work until the slab was tensioned or repaired. The stop work order isn't necessarily a complete stop, but a noncompliance notice that no further work may be done except that which brings the work back into compliance. Fulfilling the requirements of the stop work order isn't a violation of the stop work order because that would create a Catch 22. Only the city can determine if they violated the stop work order because they issued it.

ETA After rereading, if the city was waiting on a PE report and didn't want ANY work until then, then the builder probably violated the stop work order. The city inspector is likely going to be pissed. Would really like an update from OP, but it's Monday and I'm sure the wheels are still in motion. Best case scenario is that the city tells the GC, "Tough ****. Tear it all down and start over," because that means the slab has to be redone and the contractor can't argue with the city. Sucks for the contractor's bottom line, but that's what happens when you hire people to build who can't build.

Agzonfire said:

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Sea Speed said:

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Found the shady builder

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Ha! Definitely hadn't had my coffee and didn't read the full OP. I get the SWO now and the pics definitely indicate some big problems. I do believe the issue is fixable and working WITH the builder is the best option rather than getting the city to shut down the jobsite.

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So,... Firstly, the OP is supposed to take the opinion of someone who pops off without knowing what they're talking about,... The OP didn't request the stop work order. The city issued the stop work order because there was an engineering issue that needed to be ruled on BEFORE work proceeded.

Secondly, work with the builder who screwed the pooch on this AND violated a stop work order... If you were going to take the significant chance of continuing to work with this contractor, that ended when they violated the stop work order (no matter how that happened.)

That's the general gist of your recomendation?

While I would typically agree with you in giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I realize that some work must be done in order to remedy the SWO, the SWO was issued on 9/29 per the pic in OP's album after OP stated that the issue was identified "a few days" prior. OP posted on 9/30 that the builder tensioned the slab yesterday (9/29, same day the SWO was issued). I simply can't imagine that the problem was identified, the engineer evaluated and determined the path forward, the PT company was scheduled, the city approved of the work needed to lift the SWO the same day it was issued, and the cables tensioned all within a few days.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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It matters what the engineer says. If they're confident that it will be ok after being tensioned this late I still wouldn't keep the house.

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So it doesn't matter what the engineer says.

In the end, the builder must present a properly tensioned slab. Their engineer will will say it's fine. If OP wants to walk away, then he needs to find a foundation company (with an engineer) who says it's not and the cost to do it right. That's what this boils down to.

Present the high cost to the builder and offer to walk away (with his $18k) and let the builder pass the house onto some other person.

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An engineer that works for a foundation company isn't unbiased. An engineer hired by the OP is the only one that's definitely going to serve the OP. They may all come to the same conclusion, they may not.

The foundation company wants to sell the work and if it's unfixable, there's no work to sell.
The contractor doesn't want to incur any extra cost at all.

Getting $18k back that they may not be owed legally is not "walking away"... If the contractor can find an engineer that says everything is going to be fine, they're not just going to defer to the one that's going to cost them a bunch of money.

Read the ETA. It depends on what they city told them. If they were told wait for the engineer's report before doing anything at all, then yeah they definitely violated it. If they said fix the slab and have the engineer verify it'll work, then they may not have. If OP's description of the city's response is accurate, then yeah they violated it.

As a previous homebuilder, I'd run away from this as fast as possible. I dealt with one foundation issue on a counterpart's home (garage slab got poured on before the concrete guys could get it covered) that cost our company A LOT of money to repair, and that was just the garage portion.

I agree 100% with previous posters to wait for an engineer report, but my gut is telling me to stay as far away from this home as possible.

I would not personally proceed forward with this. I would start with a certified letter to the builder stressing "elderly parents, fixed income, cannot assume risk etc." sort of language.

I can tell you that I had an issue with drainage on a house I bought from a builder at one time. It was under the 1 year warranty period. I had a PE come out and document the standing water, need for subsurface drain, etc. The cost was $6,000. I presented this to the builder and they paid no attention. I told them I was sending a certified letter and they said "Oh, no, don't do that. If you do that it's going to prolong the process and set a bunch of legal process things off on our side". The drain got put in within a few weeks after that at their cost.

All of your answers will be provided by the PE ... BUT the type of PE you want is licensed as STRUCTURAL
https://pels.texas.gov/roster/pesearch.html?ver=V092421
select ACTIVE, type in CITY, then filter search results looking for STRUCTURAL,
with CIVIL nest best option if the only other option

The PE will guide you to what's next and never save money by omitting the PE inspections that lead to a blessing of corrective work done.

If PE cannot suggest a construction specialist attorney, then the local Homebuilder's Asso might have such advertising in their newsletter, if a State Search of attorneys fails to produce