A 23-year-old’s first home. A kitchen corner 1½ inches low. Two months of fighting, and cabinets that went in on a floor everyone knew wasn’t right.
A brand-new house is not a defect-free house. It’s a house where nobody has found the defects yet.
I’m helping a 23-year-old first-time buyer right now with a new construction home in Florida. This is his first house. I’m not naming the owner, the builder, the trades, or the address. It doesn’t matter who he is. What happened to him happens to buyers every week, and most of those buyers don’t have anyone in their corner who reads construction.
This is the full story, in order, because the sequence is the lesson.
Day 0: closing. Day 4: the gap.
He closed in late July and was days from moving in. The last item on the list was baseboard. When the trim crew pulled it up to install the new baseboard, there was a gap of about 1¼ inches between the bottom of the baseboard and the floor.
That is not a trim problem. A gap that size means the floor is out of level. Not slightly. Badly.
The same day, I sent the builder formal written notice. I asked for three things: a written diagnosis, a written repair scope, and a firm start and completion date. I also told them he would not be moving furniture into a home with an unresolved floor. Move furniture in, then have them rip up the floor, and you pay for two moves plus the damage risk.
The builder’s first move: shrink the problem
Three days after the notice, the builder’s rep showed up with a 4-foot level, checked the one spot we had already pointed at, and said that was the only area that needed correction.
That afternoon the buyer rejected that scope in writing. A gap that size at one wall doesn’t mean one bad spot. It means you check the whole slab.
The builder’s answer, in writing: a repair team could come in 17 days later, for that one spot only. A 23-year-old first-time buyer was paying a mortgage on a home he could not live in.
If you take one thing from this post, take this: a builder’s first offer is almost always the smallest possible repair. It’s not always bad faith. It’s how the warranty process is built. Their job is to close the ticket. Your job is to make sure the ticket matches the problem.
“We’re not paying for an engineer”
The buyer asked for a licensed, independent structural engineer. His reasoning was simple: the trades that built the floor shouldn’t be the ones grading it.
The builder declined. They would evaluate it through their own warranty process. He was welcome to hire a consultant at his own expense. That sounds fair on paper. In practice it means you pay to prove their mistake.
He filed a formal warranty service request on August 8. The builder’s repair date of August 17 came and went with no work and no call.
The laser: what the builder’s own numbers said
On August 24, the builder’s customer care team and its flooring and concrete vendors finally measured the whole floor. That was almost four weeks after the buyer first said the problem wasn’t limited to one corner.
Their own measurements confirmed it:
Four areas of the first floor were out of the builder’s own warranty tolerance of ¼ inch over 4 feet.
The greatest variation between the highest and lowest points of the first-floor slab was about 1 1/16 inches.
The kitchen corner, per the earlier survey, sat about 1½ inches low.
Same slab. Same problem the buyer flagged on day four. The only thing that changed was that someone finally put real measuring equipment on it.
The builder did not volunteer a full-floor repair. We had to force it. The buyer’s position from day one was that you cannot verify the whole first floor is good without opening the whole first floor. The builder wanted to fix four spots. He would not accept four spots. It took weeks of written demands, and it took their own numbers, before they agreed to pull all the flooring on the first floor, pull the carpet, and self-level the entire first floor with the slab exposed and measured. Cabinets, island, trim, and casings had to come out to do it.
Notice what that means. Nobody was being generous. The only way to know the rest of that slab was clean was to pull everything and look.
The compensation gap
While the repair was being scheduled, the buyer was paying a mortgage, storing furniture, and covering housing for a family member. The builder pointed to a clause in the warranty excluding relocation and other consequential costs, then offered $250 a day for 10 days: $2,500 total.
The repair schedule ran from early September to late September. We asked for the math behind the “10 days.” We never got it. His own count, from the date he would have moved in, was closer to 50.
Read your warranty’s exclusions before you close. Most of them cover exactly the losses you will actually have.
The repair created new problems
Here’s where a lot of people relax, because “they’re fixing it.” Don’t. The corrective work needs the same scrutiny as the original build.
After the first self-leveling pour, the buyer found:
The compound had been poured up against the drywall and a bottom furring strip instead of reaching the concrete block wall. That left a 1½-inch horizontal gap and a ½-inch vertical gap at the perimeter.
The kitchen island’s stub wall framing was left standing during the pour, so the compound ran around it instead of continuously across the floor.
The new floor height sat at or above the adjoining bathroom tile, which leaves no room for the finished floor without a transition problem.
Manufacturers of self-leveling underlayment call for a small isolation joint, typically ⅛ to ¼ inch, at wall junctions. This was six to twelve times that. The builder disagreed with the buyer’s reading of the product requirements. It cut the drywall back and moved forward. The buyer took the concern to the local building department and asked for an independent inspection.
I’m not telling you who’s right on every detail. I’m telling you the buyer had the specs in writing, asked for the answers in writing, and asked to inspect before the work got covered. That’s what protects you.
The cabinets went in before the floor was proven
This is the part that made me want to write this post.
The buyer told the builder in writing, more than once: do not install cabinets, countertops, or backsplash until I’ve inspected the floor. Cabinets can only be level if the floor under them is level. Setting them first means you’re guessing at the height.
The schedule went ahead anyway. Base cabinets and countertops went in. Flooring went in the next day. Then the backsplash and the remaining cabinets.
Then the buyer measured. Here’s what he found:
The base cabinets in the corner that had been 1½ inches low were still almost ½ inch low. The floor was never brought up far enough.
There was about a ½-inch deflection over a four-foot span between the countertop and the bottom of the upper cabinets.
The two upper cabinets on either side of the window sat at visibly different heights.
The backsplash had full-height tile next to tile that stopped about three-quarters of the way up. That happens when the wall is out of plane, and the wall is out of plane because the floor is.
The builder’s response was that the cabinets and countertop had been “adjusted.” Their position on the deflection was that it fell within an acceptable tolerance, measured over a 15-foot span. The buyer asked for the published source. Industry guidance the buyer cited, from the NAHB Residential Construction Performance Guidelines, limits subfloor slope to ½ inch in 20 feet, which works out to roughly 1/10 inch over four feet. Not ½.
Here is the point that matters. The cabinet installers, the countertop installers, and the tile setter all worked on a floor that hadn’t been verified level. Somebody on that job knew the cabinets and countertop weren’t landing level. They shimmed and kept going. Shimming a cabinet over a low floor hides the defect. It doesn’t fix it. And when the repair is done by hiding, the problem comes back in 18 months, after the warranty clock has run.
The builder’s latest position: the sliding door sits on a separate elevation recess and didn’t need adjustment. The buyer’s position: to fill a 1½-inch low spot properly, the door has to come out so the fill can run all the way through. He believes the fill was stopped short to avoid removing the door, which is why the corner is still off. His scope is simple:
Remove the sliding door.
Raise the floor in that corner and tie it into the surrounding floor plane.
Reinstall the door at the proper height.
Reset the base cabinets and countertop level.
Correct the upper cabinets at the window.
Remove and reinstall the backsplash after the floor is right.
He’s now asking for another laser survey with him present, same method as the first one, before anyone calls the job complete. As of this writing, that fight is still open.
Every trade knew
Here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud, so I will.
A slab that is 1½ inches out of level is not a subtle defect. It doesn’t take a laser to see it. Think about how many crews touched this house after the concrete was finished, and what each one had in front of them:
The slab crew finished it and walked away.
The block crew set the walls on it. They knew when the block went up.
The framers built on top of it. They knew when the framing went up.
The drywall crew hung board over it. They knew when the drywall went up.
The flooring crew laid a floor over it. They knew when the floor went down.
The trim and carpet crews set baseboard and carpet on it. They knew when the baseboard went on and when the carpet was installed.
The cabinet and countertop crews set boxes and stone on it, and shimmed to make it look right.
The backsplash crew ran tile up a wall that was out of plane because the floor was. They knew when full-height tile ended up next to tile that stopped three-quarters of the way up.
That’s my read as someone who has been around construction for 23+ years, and it’s not a legal finding. But at every one of those steps, the problem was there to be seen. Somebody could have stopped and said, “This floor is wrong.” Instead it got covered, one layer at a time. And when the buyer finally exposed it, the response was to defend the work and keep cutting corners on the repair.
“Everyone was on the job and no one flagged it” is how a defect ends up sold to a first-time buyer as move-in ready.
Why it keeps happening
This isn’t the first time I’ve gone up against a builder. In the last 24 months I’ve done this more than 10 times for buyers. In many of those cases, the builder ended up crediting my clients for floors, an A/C unit, a tray ceiling, doors, and more items than I can list here. The problems look different. The pattern is the same.
The pattern is speed and pay structure.
I live in a new-construction community. I’ve watched one of the best-known builders in Orlando put up the structure of a 5,000-square-foot home in about three weeks: slab, block, full framing, roof, and siding. At that pace, the trades get paid for volume, not for workmanship. Nobody on the crew is rewarded for stopping the line to fix a floor. They’re rewarded for finishing and moving to the next house.
So corners get cut. Usually not because someone woke up wanting to build a bad house. It’s because the system rewards the fast house, and nobody in the chain is paid to care what happens to the buyer in year two.
Your builder’s job is to build and close. Your inspector’s job, your agent’s job, and your job is to make sure the house you’re buying is the house you were sold.
What he did right
Documented everything in writing, the same day. Every notice, request, and response went out in writing. Phone calls don’t count.
Rejected the narrow scope. He wouldn’t accept “just that one corner.” He insisted on a full-floor check.
Demanded numbers, not opinions. Measured elevations, a laser survey, dates, and the math behind every figure.
Held his ground on the fix. Correct the floor first, then reset everything above it.
Why this matters for you
Think about who this happened to. He’s 23. This is his first house. He did the responsible thing: bought a home, closed, and got ready to move in. He had no reason to know what a slab tolerance is, what a self-leveling pour should look like, or that a cabinet installer shouldn’t set a box on a floor nobody has measured. Builders count on that. First-time buyers are the easiest people to hand a shimmed cabinet and a “that’s normal.”
Look at what it took to get here: nearly 70 days since closing, dozens of emails, a builder that had to be pushed from a 4-foot-level spot check to a whole-floor repair, and a 23-year-old still not in his first home.
Now picture the same buyer without someone who understands construction. The gap gets caulked. The baseboard goes on. The floor gets covered. The cabinets go in. Two years later the doors stick, the countertop cracks at the seam, and the warranty says the workmanship coverage ended a year ago.
The buyer’s checklist
Before you close
Hire your own inspector, not the builder’s and not your lender’s. Ask specifically about floor levelness, slab edges, and framing, not just outlets and faucets.
Ask for a pre-drywall inspection and get photos of everything that will be covered up.
Read the warranty exclusions for relocation, storage, and living costs. Know what you won’t be reimbursed for before you need it.
Write down your warranty dates on closing day: workmanship, systems, and structural. Many builders use a short window for workmanship and a much longer one for structural.
When you find a problem
Notify the builder in writing the same day. Phone calls don’t count.
Photograph it and measure it. Put a tape measure and a level in the photo.
Reject a narrow scope in writing. Ask for a full-area evaluation.
Ask for measurements, not opinions: locations, numbers, and the tolerance standard being used.
Ask for an independent engineer when the builder’s own trades are the ones evaluating.
Ask which product, which method, and which manufacturer spec. In writing.
Don’t let the next trade start until you’ve inspected the last one. Insist on it.
Do not let cabinets, countertops, or tile go on a floor that hasn’t been verified level.
When the repair starts
Get the schedule and the sequence in writing. Note who’s doing what.
Inspect before things get covered by drywall, flooring, or backsplash.
Re-measure after the repair with the same method as the original survey, with you present.
Don’t sign a completion form or release until the numbers are on paper and they’re good.
Talk to a construction attorney early. Florida has a pre-suit notice process for construction defect claims under Chapter 558, and the filing deadlines have been tightened in recent years. Confirm your exact dates the week you find the problem, not the month before they expire.
The bottom line
A new home is the biggest purchase most people ever make. The builder has a full department for managing your complaint. You need someone on your side who knows slabs, tolerances, sequencing, and how warranty language gets used.
I’ve spent 23+ years around construction, flips, and distressed properties. I’ve seen what a missed deadline costs, and I’ve seen what documenting everything in writing from day one does for a buyer’s position.
Buying new construction, or already in one and something looks off? Reach out. I’ll tell you straight what I’d check first.
This post is based on a real situation, with names, addresses, and identifying details removed. I’m not an attorney and this isn’t legal advice. Talk to a construction attorney about your own rights and deadlines.
Connect With Me
Yogi Ganeshram | Real Estate Agent, eXp Realty LLC
Phone: (321) 217-4220
Email: yogi@orlandosgreatesthomes.com
Website: EquityEdgeOrlando.com
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