Letter to the editor: Beware of Ivory Homes
The Ivory Homes Warranty Certificate (in our case, a death certificate) is unreasonable, deceptive, and irresponsible — and should be illegal
On Aug. 29 in St. George District Court, Judge Jeffrey C. Wilcox ruled in Case No. 1805000088 in favor of defendants Ivory Homes, Ltd., Ronco, Inc., Appliance Wholesalers Plus, Haier US Appliance Solutions, Inc. GE Appliances — a huge, wealthy conglomerate — and gave no consideration for me and my husband, the plaintiffs
We purchased our retirement home in November 2012 from Ivory Homes, which has branded itself “Utah’s Number One Homebuilder.”
Buyer beware.
Our suit was filed within Utah’s six-year statute of limitations, seeking damages for the faulty installation of a GE Range that allowed carbon monoxide gas to seep into our living environment at 2,000 ppm when 400 ppm is the normal limit. For a period of 5 ½ years, whenever the oven was in use — which was almost every day — we breathed the silent noxious fumes.
During the worst episodes, the voice inside my head said, “Don’t go down, they’ll find you dead.” With a black hole spiraling towards me, I’d crawl to find a phone, dial 911, and wait for the ambulance. With the emergency procedure of oxygen, the CO was never detected. I was diagnosed with panic attacks.
Migraines, nausea, and loss of hearing, vision, and balance … there was no end to the physical symptoms that became progressively worse. Functional MRI’s revealed definite brain dysfunction. Blood studies specific to CO findings were positive, thus damage to the heart and lungs were inevitable. The gray, cadaverous pallor of my skin was frightening. The overwhelming medical expenses have drained our retirement savings.
Ivory Homes takes no responsibility for any issue with regard to the construction of a home — any home. Every Ivory home buyer is required — without exception — to sign a warranty certificate at the time of purchase.
The warranty certificate is a sneaky, deceptive title for this document. It means that whatever might go wrong with your home, Ivory Homes and its subcontractors are not liable and under no obligation to fix it.
On Dec. 18, 2017, I left the oven on all day by mistake. It took until 10 p.m. for the CO to finally reach the combination smoke and CO detector that Ivory Homes had installed at the highest point of our ceiling, a detector that does not meet code in most states. Only then did we realize we’d been living in a death trap.
The day after the CO gauntlet fell, the Ivory Homes appliance subcontractor took our GE range apart in the kitchen and showed us what they’d done wrong at installation to cause the CO leak. I received a phone call from Ivory Homes. I was told, “We’ll take care of you, Sue,” and where to go to pick out a new range.
How emphatic does an admission of guilt have to be?
Ivory Homes hides behind a barrage of impenetrable legal teams to protect itself from faulty construction, defective materials, and — in my case — code violations. The Ivory Homes Warranty Certificate (in our case, a death certificate) is unreasonable, deceptive, and irresponsible — and should be illegal. We survived the carbon monoxide poisoning; maybe we can survive the irresponsible ruling and stench of this ugly lawsuit.
Sue and J. Peter Leth
St. George
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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