Meritage Homes
Reviews and Complaints

This development was originally to be 1- story homes. Then it became every 6 homes world be 2- story. Now three 2-story homes built in a row has completely obliterated any scenic views for surrounding existing homeowners. The desert is gone. The critters in our yards. ***AND*** building starts at 5am and loud Mexican music can often be heard waking up the neighborhood.
Now we are going to sell and move away. Thanks for destroying our end of life dream home.

Buyer beware of Meritage Homes in the Raleigh, NC area. They are not equipped to keep up with the demand, and it is manifesting itself in delays, poor quality, poor communication, poor customer service, and unhappy customers.

We had a contract to build a home with Meritage in Durham, NC. Delays, mistakes, poor quality, communication problems, and lack of experienced construction management started from the very beginning. After we signed our contract, it took three months for Meritage to break ground on our lot. During this time, we received no updates and had to persistently inquire to get any information. At first Meritage avoided our inquiries and we couldn't get any information about reasons for the delay, and then the reasons for the delay kept changing, and some of the reasons given were lies.

When Meritage did finally start we had all kinds of problems: concrete slab problems, framing problems, electrical outlets in wrong location, HVAC vents in wrong location, brick columns on front porch not straight, walls not straight, trim not straight, bad fireplace stone installation, mistake pouring concrete driveway - the list goes on and on. We requested meetings with Meritage about problems several times, and none of our requests were granted or even acknowledged. We had a real estate agent representing us, and he couldn't get Meritage's attention either. He told Meritage several times that there were problems and that we were not happy, and Meritage ignored him also. Meritage's lack of interest was frustrating and baffling. Meritage's modus operandi appears to be to ignore the customer as long as it can and then if pressed either claim ignorance about the problem or say that there is no problem. There were also several times where we were told something would be done and it was not, and we were not told why. Meritage lost their credibility and broke our trust early, and it only got worse. The communication and coordination between Sales and Construction appeared non-existent. There were many, many times where we asked our Sales associate, who was supposed to be our prmary contact for questions, something about our house and he either did not respond or did not have the information we needed. It definitely seemed to us and our agent that Sales was not getting the information it needed from Construction. It was a typical example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing.

One contributing factor to the problems we experienced was that Meritage changed our construction manager, with no transition or handoff (even though our agent suggested a meeting), at a critical time in the process. Things went downhill after that. Several things which were discussed with the previous construction manager were missed or done incorrectly. Our new construction manager was inexperienced, appeared overwhelmed and not knowledgeable about our house, and was not present much at our job site. We and our agent felt that our construction manager was not giving our house enough attention and was not walking it like he should.

The problems piled up to the point where we decided we could not close because Meritage was not fixing anything and we did not have confidence in the quality of the home. If there were that many problems we knew about, how many problems were there that we didn't know about? The final product was as flawed as their processes and communication. We informed Meritage that we would not be closing, and only THEN they decided they wanted to meet with us. We met with management (Director of Sales and Director of Construction). They claimed they had not heard about any of the problems. They admitted they had problems with their internal processes and with their staffing and with our construction manager being inexperienced, overloaded, and insufficiently trained. They admitted they were having trouble keeping up with demand. They agreed that our concerns were valid and reasonable. They offered to "look into" the problems but could not commit to fixing them. We politely asked for a refund of our $11, 000+ deposit, and they refused.

We also had issues getting a closing date from Meritage and Meritage's in-house mortgage company, MTH. When we got to the point where we should have received a closing date, we did not have a closing date. We went several weeks past the point where the builder should have provided a closing date - the mortgage company even told us that it was strange that we did not have a closing date by that point. When we asked our Sales associate about a closing date, he told us he had nothing to do with the closing date and passed us off on the mortgage company. The mortgage company passed us off on Meritage. Not getting a closing date for so long and so late in the process made it difficult for us to lock a mortgage rate and resulted in us getting a higher rate than we should have.

We know Meritage can easily sell the house for at least $10, 000 more than our contract price. They raised the base price on our model $9, 000 shortly after we signed our contract. Meritage should not be able to keep the profits from selling our home AND keep our deposit. Falling back on what the contract says about the deposit is not reasonable, fair, or acceptable given a) Meritage did not fulfill the terms and conditions of the contract b) all of the attempts that we made to get Meritage's attention about problems fell on deaf ears and c) everything that Meritage put us through.

We forwarded our request to the Division President in Raleigh but have not heard back.

I purchased a brand new home from Meritage Homes. After the home was built, closed and ready for leaving, found the kitchen floor plan has big design flaw: First, a most commonly used 25 ct frig could not be put in. At the end, we have to take the trim off the wall in order to put the frig in; second and also the worst problem is that when open the frig, the door hit the wall (the door can't even be opened 90 degree such that I couldn't slid the draws out for half way). It is $300000+ home. It seems the builder only considered whether the space fits the frig, but the usability. The worst thing that the builder did not admit it isn't a design flaw. In their words: "such design is not uncommon, but being a real estate professional I have not seen a house that won't allow frig to open or take draw out. The worst kitchen design!

Meritage is attempting to defraud our homeowners association out of over $200, 000. They had their title company ignore the outstanding dues letter. We were told all homes they built would have pools; to-date NO homes they built have pools except the model. They do NOT follow the existing covenants because they think they are above the law.

They lie to their own employees and say the bills to our HOA are paid when, in-fact, they are not.

BUYER BEWARE! THE HOA WILL LIEN YOUR PROPERTY FOR THE OUTSTANDING DUES OF APPROX. $10, 000 PER HOME.
ALL HOMEOWNERS ARE PAYING DOUBLE DUES BECAUSE MERITAGE DOES NOT PAY THEIR BILLS.

It's a shame that peple are able to post false complaints. David Telya did not loose $7,000 in stolen articles. He forgot to lock a garage door and his insurance claim only came to just over $1,000. If you have the patience to read through his ramblings, it's obvious that he is an individual that suffers with manic episodes.

I believe that an employee of Meritage Homes has stolen $7,000 of valuables from my house, of which most is irreplaceable. I believe this is due to the negligence of Meritage Homes Management.

On Tuesday October 31st we closed with Meritage Homes on new home.

I was issued house keys, garage openers, keys to the mail box, and keys to the single garage door, and other items. After closing I dropped off a few of my belongings into the garage. Since the garage openers were not working, I went in through the front door and opened both garage doors from the inside. The house comes with a three car garage. The garage door is split into a two car garage door, and a single garage door. The single garage door is not attached to a garage opener, and it needs to be opened manually, which I did from the inside. I unloaded my belongings which included the missing items, as well as other sports gear (baseball bats, golf clubs, basketball, football, etc…). Before leaving, we had an employee of Meritage Homes come in to touch up the kitchen cabinets. Afterwards I locked up, closing the garage door from the inside, and leaving through the front door, and made sure it was locked.

I did not return until that following Saturday. My brother and I, along with our families moved some of our belongings from his garage. We made two trips and in the evening decided to head back and stay at his house in Glendale AZ, an hour north. My wife and mother-in-law decided to stay back and start unpacking. Since we were unloading everything in the garage, we had opened both garage doors from the inside (garage openers were not working, they had not yet been programmed) Before leaving for the night, and being concerned that my wife and mother-in-law were staying back, I decided to check all the keys and doors, everything seemed fine.

Afterwards I closed the two car garage door from inside and walking out through the single garage door and pulling it down, I check the handle and it was not locked. I grabbed the keys from the inside and tried to lock it, but the keys were not working. I checked the number on the key and the garage door handle, and they did not match. I did not think nothing of it, but did tell my wife to lock the inside door and to contact Christy Rocca, the sale person for Meritage Homes, and have the keys changed.

The garage door handle and keys were changed the second week of November. All this time the garage door remained unlocked, and it had remained unlocked – unknowingly to us – for the first few days after we closed. Even if it was locked, who had the real keys to the garage door?

After we had moved in, we were trying to locate the home phones and they could not be found anywhere. We thought they might have been thrown away mistakenly. On Sunday, November 19th, I was searching for my paintball guns and could not find them. I asked my wife and she said she hasn’t seen them. Then it dawned on me. I started searching for my silver coins, my foreign currency and my baseball cards. I couldn’t find any of it. Then I realized that all these items I had dropped off that Tuesday after we had closed. I hadn’t known about the unlocked garage door, and wasn’t aware of the wrong key. I put one and one together, and realized that someone must have stolen these items.

I informed Meritage Homes, and they said they can’t do anything about it. I reminded them that they were the ones that gave me wrong keys to the garage and it was unlocked all this time. If I had known it wasn’t locked I would not have dropped off my stuff there, and that even if I had known I wouldn’t have been able to lock it because they had issued me wrong keys, and where were the real keys? I told them that I believe this was done intentionally, giving whoever robbed us, the opportunity to walk in without a problem.

They told me to take it up with my insurance company. I’m sorry I don’t have receipts for each baseball card that I had collected back in the 80’s and early 90’s, and I don’t have receipts for all the silver coin that I had collected over a 10 year period, or any of the missing items.

I guess this is my problem not theirs, they already have their money.