By Brittany Anderson
BUDA — Jack Zapata has lived in the Stonefield subdivision in Buda with his family for six years — but now, he is looking to heed warning to other potential homebuyers after experiencing problems with builder Lennar.
After the Zapatas signed for and purchased their home in 2016, they noticed one major problem before even moving in.
“I had initial concerns because they were pouring these foundations when we were having some really bad weather,” Zapata said. “The ground was soaked; [the] foundations were soaked.”
In spring 2020, Zapata began noticing things in and around his house that indicated foundation issues, such as doors not lining up and the staircase cracking in the exterior brick.
Zapata is not alone. Along with his next-door neighbor and three other homes around their block requiring foundation lifts, his neighbors across the street had been in their brand-new home for only about eight months before they started seeing cracks, which went all the way up their two-story wall.
“I understand a one-off, but this is not a one-off,” Zapata said.
Lennar has faced similar problems in other subdivisions around Central Texas. A KXAN Investigates story in February 2022 found that across 11 years' worth of records, 49 homes at Lennar’s Bradshaw Crossing neighborhood in southeast Austin had city permits filed for foundation repair.
Zapata’s next-door neighbor lives next to a green belt hill, which often causes flooding between their two homes. His neighbor’s sump pump runs constantly, and Zapata even built a stone path to try and mitigate excess runoff, as he believed that could have contributed to the foundation issues.
Lennar first chose to implement several “financial alternatives” to a foundation lift such as putting in downspouts, gutters and regrading yards, which were unsuccessful. Zapata’s foundation lift occurred in November 2020, lifting the rear of the home about seven inches and the front of the home about one inch.
Zapata noted that it took months to have the driveway, patio, sprinkler system and grass put back in place following the lift, and that there is still work to be done to finish up the lift nearly two years on. The under-slab tunneling has also caused problems, including being able to hear a hollow echo underneath the house when walking and leaving part of the backyard unsafe for his children due to the large hole present.
In April, Zapata noticed mold along the baseboards and in the towels and sheets of one of their bathroom linen closets. The mold was also found underneath the bathtub and up the surrounding walls. A mold remediation company was brought in, as well as a forensic company to investigate the cause of the mold, who determined that it came from the tunnels.
“Because of the temperature difference below the house, the open tunnels build up humidity underneath, so a lot of moisture and heat gets trapped in those areas where there’s no soil up against it to reabsorb that,” Zapata said. “[It is] the exact mixture to grow mold.”
With the bathtub and walls torn out, Zapata has now been left with active construction sites both inside and out. The tunnels remain open — polyjacking might be the only solution — and while work finally began to put the bathroom back together in early October, it was still unusable for the entire summer. The lack of wall insulation made their electric bill skyrocket from around $120, at its usual maximum, to over $200.
Zapata’s concerns don’t end with his home. There are newer homes within the subdivision that suddenly changed to hardiplank instead of brick, which he believes will make it more difficult to notice foundation problems. Lennar told residents at neighborhood meetings that this was done to “speed up” the building process.
Zapata and his neighbors also struggle with the idea of having to one day sell their homes, knowing that they will have to take a large financial hit in order to make it appealing to potential buyers due to the amount of work that has been done.
Danielle Tocco, vice president of communications for Lennar, maintains that they hire “qualified licensed trades to perform work within industry standards.”
“That work is checked by a third party engineer in Texas (DPIS) and also checked multiple times by the relevant city and county inspectors,” Tocco said in an emailed statement.
Lennar did not respond to other questions asked regarding their site preparation process, communication process with homeowners, standard length of time to complete work such as foundation lifts, whether there are environmental features in the Stonefield area that would impact homes or information on the newer home design change.
For Zapata, the work is far from over. Roof repairs, brick repairs, the open tunnel and more are all yet to be finished, and the lack of communication with no concrete plans on Lennar’s part has left him frustrated and distraught, especially with having young children in the house.
“It’s like pulling teeth. … You would think that they would want to make things right,” Zapata said. “... It’s a culmination of a lot of stuff, and the support after is, ‘We’ll get to it if we get to it.’ You don’t live here. We do. … I’m hoping for more motivation and transparency. What else do we do? We’re stuck here.”
