Tehachapi News

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Local residents of KB Home’s, Autumn Hills subdivision have put together a petition signed by approximately 30 homeowners complaining about the service and quality of claims for repairs made to their homes by KB. According to KB, more than 750 claims have been completed at the subdivision.

“I have a crack in one of my ceilings that was fixed a year ago and now needs to be fixed again. There are a lot of sprinkler and back yard drainage issues,” said Brandon Guthrie, a spokesman for the group said. He continued, “Part of the problem appears to be the manager of the customer service up here. He just doesn’t follow through.”

Guthrie presented the petition to the city council at the March 17 meeting, asking them to stop KB from building mores homes in the area until residents concerns are properly addressed. The council refused to accept the petition on advice of legal counsel, as the issue is a civil matter. The city did agree to meet with Guthrie and discuss a list of 15 items directly related to repairs, and several non-repair issues described in the signed petition.

Keith Jajko, a Customer Service Representative from KB’s North Los Angeles office, provided a copy of the warranty agreement for the Tehachapi News.
Jajko stressed that, “KB’s other financial issues, like the first quarter of 2008 losses reported for home sales, have no bearing on repair issues for existing homes.”

Paul Moore, Director of Customer Service at the same office said, “That community is broken down into phases; Phase A and Phase B. We have sent out a letter to Phase A, and have received no responses. Phase B letters are going out, and they should be receiving them this week. And we’ll respond to any calls received per the terms of the warranty.”

Moore continued, “There are 134 homes there. We’ve completed over 750 claims with a six day average. Are there sub-contractors and material providers going out of business? Yes. So if you had a Brand X garbage disposal or something like that fail under warranty, we have to find a comparable Brand Z to replace it. It is, frankly, more challenging up there as the sub-base and contractor base are out of Bakersfield, Lancaster and Palmdale. This adds about two days longer to schedule and get service provided.”

Moore concluded, “Is everyone happy up there? No. But we’re doing our best and we’re not going anywhere.”