I have now filed a Phoenix BBB complaint about the fact Meritage Homes a.k.a. Monterey Homes in-effect has stolen my earnest money by refusing to sell to me just 2-days after agreeing i writing to the second sale to me on the same home. That appears to be the alleged end-result of a Monterey Homes sales person Gail Richardson and her boss Vice President ("Marti Tolby-Smith") allegedly being childishly upset I had something a bit negative to say about Meritage-Monterey (to a transaction involved 3rd-party) and the way they had handled me (since the time of my first purchase contract long ago).

That unjustified cancellation appears to be strongly correlated to my believed to be confidential email I had sent to my FutureFi Home Mortgage Loan Broker only 2-days earlier, and a FutureFi.com mortgage loan broker employee (Ms. Amy Clegg) then forwarding my personal email (without authorization or knowledge) to Ms Gail Richardson a Licensed Realtor® with Monterey Homes, who in-turn sent it to her manager Ms. Martha 'Marti" Tolby Smith (also a Realtor® and Monterey Homes Vice President) with the notation FYI (For Your Information). Less than 2-hrs later Ms. Tolby-Smith notified me they had changed their mind (giving no reason other than some nonsense about a 'vision') and now refuse to sell the Sandalo Unit #1004 property to me (and in-effect they are keeping my confiscated $20,000 I was expecting back as a rebate with the agreed to resale).

LATEST NEWS UPDATE DATED JAN 26 2007: After we filed the Better Business Bureau complaint about Monterey Homes and Meritage Homes, a Meritage employee officially responded to the Phoenix BBB with false and untruthful information which untrue BBB feedback from Meritage is reprinted below:

"After the (first purchase) cancellation, Meritage put Unit 1004 back on the market as a reduced price spec home in an effort to sell the home and minimize carrying costs. Mr. Green came into the sales center and expressed interest in buying the Unit. He was unwilling to pay the asking price and demanded that we reduce the already reduced price an additional $20,000, reasoning that he had already put $20,000 down toward the Unit from his previous Purchase Contract. Meritage explained to Mr. Green that the reduced price already took into account the $20,000 which was forfeited due to his breach of the original Purchase Contract and that we would not discount it another $20,000. Mr. Green apparently was not happy with that response either and has since engaged in a smear campaign which Meritage deems groundless."

MY BBB RESPONSE: The above explanation from Meritage is totally and utterly false information and simply untrue. I am not sure if the person who wrote it has made it up, or perhaps there is some other explanation for the false information given the BBB, though I have little idea what it could be.

As a side-note to this story, we have learned upon investigation one of the key parties involved (Gail Richardson) had her Monterey Homes employment suddenly terminated Dec 2007 after many years with Monterey Homes. When we first met Gail about 1-year earlier she told Bridget and I she was with Monterey for 9-yrs. It's a distinct possibility Gail Richardson left Monterey Homes as a direct or indirect result of this sordid affair, though that's not confirmed. It seems quite odd as far as the timing goes that Gail left Monterey Homes soon after our MoneteryHomesSucks.com web site went online with the troubling negative information about this new home builder and the shockingly bad way they allegedly treated me (and many other negative consumer reports).

When my Daughter Bridget and I went to the Monterey Sandalo sales office (both Saturday and Sunday) in November 2007 to repurchase Sandalo Unit 1004, Ms Richardson at first seemed a little hesitant to say definitely the confiscated $20,000 would in fact be refunded upon repurchase (though she and others earlier said that was a company policy, including the Meriatge Homes Attorney Mr. Austin Woffinden).

During the meeting I reminded Gail that both herself, and a fellow Realtor® Dan Nichols, and the Meritage Attorney "Austin Woffinden" had promised I would get the 20K refunded upon successful close of escrow if I re buy the unit at the current listed price and terms. In fact, Austin Woffinden said in an earlier phone conversation that "I should go into the sales office and sign a new sales contract at whatever the discounted spec home new low price is at the time, including getting any incentives, and in addition I would also get my original 20K earnest money back upon the closing."

After reconsidering what had been promised and what Austin Woffinden said Gail and Dan gave the explanation for the sharply newer price based on Unit 1004 now being classified as a so called Spec Home, combined with price declines as a result of extremely weak market conditions. Not once did I ever mention wanting an extra 20K beyind the price Gail and Dan Nichols quoted us at that time. However, Monterey Homes is falsely telling the Phoenix BBB we wanted $20,000 more than quoted in addition to the new low price and other incentives. That is either a blatant lie and total fabrication, a twisting of what really happened, or possibly a serious case of misinformation (or even some odd confusion) from one or more of the parties involved in this fiasco, keeping in mind some of these Monterey/Meritage people are not friendly, and also allegedly not very sharp-minded too.

During the in-person meeting that Sunday Gail Richardson said she also needed to consult with her so called boss Ms. Martha Marti Tolby-Smith and she promised Ms Smith would personally call me the next day (Monday) to confirm the arrangements. Unfortunately, Ms. Martha (Marti) Tolby-Smith never called. To this day I deeply regret that Ms. Smith did not act more business-like and was more professional by calling me back to verify everything regarding the terms and straighten out any possible misinformation or clarify any potential miscommunications.

However, I did get a concise email that Monday from Ms. Richardson (I assume Ms. Smith told Gail to send the email, in lieu of Ms. Smith calling). The email evidence (which can be clicked-on to enlarge for easy reading) stated the repurchase terms precisely where Sandalo Unit 1004 would be repurchased by me at the current advertised spec home reduced price, which included discounts, plus she clearly stated I would get the same incentive as before to help with closing costs and very importantly specifically said I would also get the much promised $20,000 credit, which Gail very IMPORTANTLY confirmed in her email, to be credited back to me upon the planned December closing.

Next, as soon as the email with the specific Monterey buy-back terms arrived I immediately tried to call Gail Richardson and ended-up leaving several messages (I recall at least 3 times that day) on her voice mail since she did not answer my calls, clearly stating with no new terms added (and at any time asking for an extra $20,000 discount they have falsely claimed I did) and fully agreed to all her email repurchase terms, but she failed to return my several calls. Therefore, I tried calling Dan Nichols and Ms. Smith but to no avail as they too did not answer and also failed to return my several more phone calls.

After those failed communications attempts I next tried to call the Meritage Homes Attorney Austin Woffinden and the same story, he too did not answer, I left 2 voice mail messages that day, but again no returned calls or any other communications. At no time did I ever say or even imply that I wanted an extra 20K as was falsely stated in the Meritage Homes reply to my BBB complaint. That is a shocking falsification of the facts by whoever it was who wrote the BBB with the complaint response.

My ongoing communications atempts went on for 3-days, starting that Monday when I first got the Montery email, and Tuesday and Wednesday. I also called my FutureFi loan broker Connie Moss (and Amy Clegg) at FutureFi.com several times during this time frame and obtained a faxed new loan approval letter which was requested by Monterey in the emailed agreement to resell. In addition, I had several long conversations with FutureFi employee Amy Clegg and informed Amy about how Gail had sent an email on Monday (and sent Amy a copy of said email) outlining the concise repurchase terms, and how I fully agreed to the terms and price and how they were all ignoring my calls to setup the requested appointment to sign a new contract. Amy agreed to work on processing my new pre-approved loan regardless of Monterey not communicating any more.

As a side-note, in my opinion someone who is allegedly so poor at customer communications like Marti-Tolby Smith is alleged to be should not be working as a high ranking Vice President for a major home builder like Monterey Homes a.k.a. Meritage Homes Corporation. Is it any wonder this new homes builder has such a questionable and often poor business reputation what with all the complaints we know about and has seen such a major NYSE stock price decline what with all the allegedly extremely poor at communications employees, officers and Licensed Realtors® employed there!

Then things got suddenly (and needlessly) worse when "Amy Clegg" an employee of my loan broker FutureFi.com for some mysterious and unknown reason forwarded a negative sounding email I had earlier sent to Amy which I assumed was to be held in confidence regarding my mortgage loan to Ms Gail Richardson!

Within a very fast 2-hrs of Amy Clegg's mysterious email forwarding Mr. Marti Smith informed me they are now refusing to sell to me again, and gave absolutely no reason at all other than very weird and alleged childish sounding nonsense from Mr "Martha Tolby-Smith" that her "vision" was different than mine (which to this day I have absolutely no idea what it really means or even was intended to mean). What a strange thing for a Meritage Homes Vice President "Martha Tolby-Smith." to say and a unbusinesslike sounding response in view of the fact no one except Marti Smith has the foggiest idea what is meant by a 'diffeent vision' in the first place. To this day I still don't know.

After Ms. Martha Marti Smith's mysterious refusal to sell email on Wednesday I made numerous attempts to find out what happened, including dozens of phone calls and emails to all the parties involved, including "Todd Bowden" "Marti Tolby-Smith" "Gail Richardson" "Sandra Musil" "Austin Woffinden" "Connie Moss" "Joseph.Sciarrotta" and last but not least "Steve Hinton" the Meritage CEO. My many emails and calls to all the Meritage/Monterey officers, Realtors and employees were totally ignored and continue to be ignored.

As of Jan 26 2008 Meritage Homes has never once attempted to contact me in any way to either explain things or attempt to work this out. The first ever explanation from Monterey-Meritage was their response to my BBB compant they sent to the BBB end of Jan 2008. Isn't that utter and total lack of communications for almost 3-mos simply amazing? Yet, now they say I am running an unjust smear campaign!

That's a frivolous and ridiculous thing to say and is not valid. This is not a smear campaign but a desire to show other home buyers the kind of firm they are dealing with by maintaining a free speech protest website, and hoping consumers are very careful in their dealings with Meritage Homes so they too are not allegedly screwed by this new home builder who has been so amazingly unresponsive and unfair in their dealings with my Daughter and I.

In addition, thanks to open and free public access to this web site and its ability to spread the word about this new home builder we hope to get sufficent numbers of other unhappy Meritage and Monterey Homes customers who lost money dealing with them to participate in a possible class-action lawsuit againt Monterey Homes and Meritage Homes Coporation.

The BBB information below was extracted from the Meritage (a.k.a. Monterey) Report at the Phoenix Better Business Bureau website on December 12 2007. The Phoenix Better Business Bureau has processed a total of 20 complaints about Meritage Homes in the last 36 months, which is the BBB standard reporting period. Of the total of 20 complaints closed in 36 months, 9 were closed in the last year (Note: some complaints were resolved and some were not settled). The BBB complaints were based on the 8 issues listed below.

Keep in mind the many BBB complaints were filed only with the Phoenix Better Business Bureau (likely involving their Phoenix or Scottsdale AZ new home sales). However, in addition to Arizona, Meritage also has active operations in California, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Texas. Since the Better Business Bureaus are separate from each other there may very well be a quite substantial number of complaints filed at various BBB offices nationwide. Monterey Homes Sucks.com has not had time to investigate the Meritage complaint record at the other Better Business Bureau locations but we plan to do so soon and will update the information when our nationwide investigation of Monterey Homes and Meritage Homes Corporation is finally completed.

P.S. The last BBB issue below (claim of alleged failure to honor company policy or verbal commitment to provide refunds, exchanges, or credit for products or services) is of particular interest to the owner of Monterey Homes Sucks.com website (who unfortunately has a major issue on a very similar basis with Monterey) even though that BBB complaint below was not from myself but was filed by an unidentified 3rd party.

Contract Issues - Claims of alleged failure to honor contract or agreement, work performed without authorization, or invalid contract.

Sales Practice Issues - Claims of alleged sales presentations made in person or by telephone that contain misrepresentations of the product or service, high pressure sales practices, failure to disclose key conditions of the offer, and verbal representations not consistent with written contractual terms or agreements.

Delivery Issues - Claims alleging delayed delivery of ordered merchandise.

Repair Issues - Claims of alleged incorrect diagnosis of a problem, delay in completion of repair, or inferior workmanship.

Service Issues - Claims of alleged delay in completing service, failure to provide promised service, inferior quality of provided service, or damaged merchandise as a result of delivery service.

Guarantee or Warranty Issues - Claims alleging failure to honor the terms regarding guarantees or warranties.

Product Issues - Claim alleging a product does not meet the expectations of the complainant, including defective merchandise.

Refund or Exchange Issues - Claim of alleged failure to honor company policy or verbal commitment to provide refunds, exchanges, or credit for products or services.

Here is a link to the BBB website where up-to-date details can be accessed regarding complaints in the Meritage Homes Corp BBB Report

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