Ansca Homes Gave misleading information re: closing date of house LOST HOUSE Ripoff Boynton Beach Florida

Do not let this happen to you!! Due to the rising home values in South Florida, Ansca Homes mislead my mother regarding her closing date making her lose the house she planned to retire in!!! The entire process, after signing the purchase contract, was a complete mess!

Miscommunication, misinformation and no customer service at all! Horrible!! Here's the story:

In early 2004, my mother (who was 70 years old at the time) traveled to Florida from California with the intent of buying a retirement home.

She put down a deposit on a house in the Villagio active adult community being built by Ansca Homes. She signed a purchase contract with a closing date of June, 2004 but was told closing would more than likely be late August/early September.

Throughout the process, she repeatedly called the sales office to follow-up on the closing date as she planned on selling her house in California in order to purchase the house in Florida. Very rarely were her calls returned, and in the one or two instances she did receive a callback they gave her no indication that the closing would be anything but late August/early September.

On 6/25/04, she receives a certified letter stating that her closing is scheduled for 7/21. The letter is dated 6/2/04. This date is a complete shock to her as she doesn't have her house on the market yet. She tries repeatedly to get a hold of someone at Ansca Homes with no luck.

At this point in time, I get involved and I leave a message for and fax to the owner of Ansca, Angelo Scardina, requesting that the closing date be pushed back due to the miscommunication by their salespeople. Within moments, Angie Anderson (a customer service rep) calls back and says that my request has been denied; Ansca does not push back scheduled close dates.

We start the process of a cash out refinance on the California property in order to pay for the Florida property. We let Angie know that we are not sure if this refinance will close by 7/21.

I also let Arlene Leibmann (Ansca's Title Company & Attorney; Home Title Inc.) know that we may run a couple of days late in having the cash ready as we were told closing would be late August/early September. Her response was: "OK, but I wouldn't let it go any longer than that". So, we assumed that - at worst - we would be hit with an additional default penalty when buying the house, which was agreeable to us. We make plans to travel to Florida on 7/21 for the scheduled walk-through.

On 7/21, we meet with friends that live close-by and have them join us in the walk through. Ansca's rep, Lea Miller(?) sees our friends and calls Ansca's corporate office. When she gets off the phone, she basically orders our friends off the property because of "Ansca's regulations"!

On 7/28 and 7/29, I faxed Home Title, Ansca's title company, the status of our cash out refinance. I get no response.

On 7/30, the cash out refinance closes on the property in California.

On 8/2, my title company contacts Home Title to get the updated purchase price including default fees.

On 8/3 Arlene Leibmann of Home Title calls me stating that Ansca Homes has terminated the contract. I told her that she had earlier insinuated to me that it would be OK if we were a couple of days late in paying for the house, but she now denied this!

So, as you can see, the entire process was basically a big debacle and I would recommend staying away from Ansca as my mother now stands the chance of losing her deposit and downpayment and upgrade costs of almost $40,000!

Mike
San Diego, California
U.S.A.