05/20/2026
Blake and Beth Horio bought a home in 2022 in a Henderson, Nev., community thinking it would be an ideal place to retire. But soon, cracks began spreading across the ceilings. Their sliding glass doors wouldn’t open. Their foundation sank several inches, leaving a gap underneath the house. 🏠 https://on.wsj.com/49bJzdp
When an engineer who examined the home dropped a marble on the kitchen floor, it sped off into the corner. “Your home is sinking,” he told them.
Now, the Horios are involved in a legal dispute with the home’s builder. The couple said the company responded to their complaints, but performed only cosmetic repairs of a ceiling crack and ultimately failed to address the underlying soil issue.
“We worked hard to get here and we can’t enjoy our home,” said Beth Horio. “I can’t even have coffee outside. I can’t get outside.”
The legal liabilities of some of America’s biggest home builders, including D.R. Horton and Lennar, have surged in recent years as buyers increasingly sue for damages from alleged construction defects.
Homeowners say the legal claims are the result of builders constructing shoddier, error-ridden homes. They allege that builders are using cheaper materials, cutting corners and hiring unqualified and undersupervised subcontractors.
Builders say the claims reflect a tiny fraction of the total homes they produce and that errors are typically the fault of subcontractors, not the companies.
Read more: https://on.wsj.com/49bJzdp
