Need legal advise on a house we just built - serious answers please!

Question

OK here is the deal, we just built a colonial (from a reputable builder) with a huge front porch. We decided to put the vinyl front porch railing on ourself to save money. When we went to measure them, they were not where the blue prints said - nor evenly spaced. Which will make putting the railing up harder and may be crooked. In order to fix it, the builder says they have to rip out the whole front porch, cement, posts and roof because the posts go down into the foundation. BUT -they are giving me a hard time about fixing it. They are trying to do EVERYTHING but re-do it. What is my legal right in this matter? Can I make them rip it out, can I get them to give me money back??? My lawyer costs too much for a simple question. Any advise would be swell!! Thank you!

Answer 1

How about option b - you ask the builder to give you a discount on having him put up the railing. Then it's his problem to deal with.

Answer 2

Stop and think about this, do you really want to go through the time and trouble not to mention the huge mess it will take to rip it out and replace it?  If you did not notice it before you measured it is it really worth all that trouble?

Sometimes you cannot follow the blueprints exactly.  When you working in the real world and not on a piece of paper the ground is not always level and sometimes things just don't fix exactly.

I would also think if you start tearing things apart they will never be as strong.

If you can get the railing on without tearing something apart even if it's going to cost a little extra I would do it.  Sometimes your sanity is worth a few bucks.

Answer 3

You are being picky.  Would you even have noticed that the posts were not where they were supposed to be or not evenly spaced if you hadn't planned to put the railing on yourself?  Talk to the builder, tell him he doesn't have to re-do it if he puts the railing on for you for free and makes it looks good and he'll probably be happy with that deal.

I work in a cabinet shop and you can't imagine how many times we get blueprints that are unbuildable and we tweak them, make it look good and nobody even notices.