Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Can they sue the fence company?

I'm just kidding about that one, of course. I would never advocate a lawsuit against a fence company. As most people who know me realize, I built miles and miles of fence while growing up and working for my dad's fence company. But still, it seems like the salesman for the fence company discussed below should have had a little more sense when bidding this job.

A woman in Tooele, Utah, named Paula Warr bought a model home from a company called Ivory Homes. When Ms. Warr first visited the house, it did not have a fence. She eventually negotiated a contract to purchase the house and the contract specified that the builder would provide 92 linear feet of white vinyl fence. The homebuilder then contracted with a third party fence builder, who could not get to the job prior to closing. So, the parties closed anyway, with an agreement that the fence would be installed post-closing.

Sometime later, Ms. Warr returned home from work to find that her new fence had been installed around the backyard. She began walking around the fence trying to get into the backyard, but she could not get into her backyard. There was no gate in the fence.

Now, her grass is more more than a foot tall. Her lawnmower can't fit through the kitchen and it is too heavy to lift over the fence. Her garage does not have backyard access either. "Who puts up a fence without a gate?" Warr asked. "Nobody wants to take a lawnmower through their house."

Ivory Homes says a gate was never part of the deal. A spokesperson for Ivory Homes released a statement saying that "Paula Warr's contract does have 92 lineal feet of fencing to be installed as part of the purchase agreement. However, there was no request for a gate as part of the agreement. Based on these facts, we feel that we have fulfilled our contractual obligation."

So, maybe the fence company did suggest a gate, but the homebuilder did not want to pay for one. I knew it couldn't be the fencers' fault!

2 comments:

Waseem A. Mateen said...

That's a funny one!

Unknown said...

Ha ha... this one is hilarious.