Dateline Tuesday - The People Behind the Pulte Nightmare Home Story

[Guest guest]

Carolina Resident's Home Nightmare

To Be Featured on NBC-TV's Dateline

-- and Lorinda Couch's Greenville, SC, Home Part of Home Warranty

Story--

April 17, 2001, 10:30 P.M. EST (Subject to change by NBC)

sville, NC (April 13, 2001) - Three years after and Lorinda

Couch got married, they moved to Greenville, SC, and bought their first

home. Little did they know that the problems they incurred as a result of a

deficiently built, brand-new home would make national headlines and draw the

attention of NBC-TV's award-winning Dateline news magazine program.

The Couches' " Pultenightmarehome " - as they call it

(www.pultenightmarehome.com), referring to the still unresolved problems

with their poorly built Pulte home - will be featured in a story Dateline is

doing on home warranties.

Even with the media exposure, the Couches' saga is bound to continue. In

fact, because of personal safety issues that are still problematic, living

in a home with insufficient heating, where water pipes burst, doors leak,

and walls that move with only slight pressure, the Couches moved out of

their home and out of South Carolina to North Carolina.

" The last four years have been a tremendous learning experience for our

family, " said Lorinda Couch. " We have learned that there is a serious

problem with new homebuilding construction, and we would like to help

prevent others from experiencing the nightmare that befell us because we

wrongly assumed that there were government-enforced standards for new home

construction. "

According to Couch, the couple married in 1993 and moved to

Simpsonville/Greenville, SC, in 1996. That year in September they bought

their newly constructed Pulte Home. " We immediately started having problems

such as burst water pipes, leaking doors, heating problems, uneven walls

that were not level, etc. We can push on one wall of our home and see the

entire house move, " Couch recalled.

After many attempts to get the builder to fix the problems, the couple filed

two complaints with the South Carolina Licensing Board. One complaint

resulted in the suspension of only one Pulte Home employee's license.

Frustrated with the lack of progress through Pulte's warranty and the State

Licensing Board, the Couches hired an attorney in 1998. " To our surprise we

found out we had signed away our 7th Amendment rights to a trial by jury

when we signed the purchase agreement to buy our new Pulte home, "

Couch recounted. " In this purchase agreement was an arbitration clause, and

we are now forced into binding arbitration instead of having a choice. "

After four years of stress and unresolved problems, the Couches decided to

move out of the Pulte Home and out of South Carolina. " Living in the Pulte

home was very stressful. We were always afraid of the potential hazards that

we faced by continuing to live in it, " Couch said.

Today, the Couches live in sville, NC, and continue to pay for the home

in Simpsonville/Greenville, SC. " We still own and pay the mortgage for the

Pulte home, but are very thankful we do not live in it. We still cannot sell

it, rent it or get it repaired correctly, " Couch said.

In the meantime, Lorinda Couch has become an advocate for better new home

construction. Today, as President of the North Carolina chapter of

HomeOwners for Better Building, Lorinda Couch is leading the effort for the

passage of a state " Home Lemon Law. " and for government to take

responsibility and enforce its residential building codes. " No one, " she

said, " should have to go through what we're going through. "

HomeOwners for Better Building was founded in 1977 in Texas as a way to

assist homeowners facing frustration and expensive repairs on their homes

with construction defects. The organization's founding resulted from a

Federal Trade Commission investigation that revealed 75% of all new homes

built had defects. Since then, HOBB's national effort, led by San 's

Janet Ahmad, has established chapters in Texas, California, Florida,

Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.