OVER 200 homeowners have been awarded a huge payout after a massive home construction company was found guilty of negligence.
DR Horton lost a $20million lawsuit after homes in the South Carolina subdivision of Rose Hill were allegedly left falling apart from poor construction.
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The jury in Anderson County about a two-hour drive from Columbia, found the damages totaled $22million with the involvement of subcontractors.
DR Horton is responsible for paying $15million of it while JLS Masonry must pay $4million.
Each of the 220 homeowners will get a gross amount of nearly $100,000.
"No it doesn't hurt them [DR Horton]," the plaintiffs' attorney Justin Lucey told CBS affiliate WSPA.
"They need more consumers to hold them accountable for them to even notice."
Lucey represented the homeowners in the class action lawyers and said that DR Horton has accrued billions of dollars in wealth from building allegedly defective homes.
When they attempted to defend their designs, Lucey said he was dumbstruck.
"One of their main defenses, in this case, is that everybody does it, all of the other builders do it, this is just the new industry standard," Lucey said.
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"When I heard that the first time, I was just shocked.
"Imagine America's number one builder advocating a factual defense that this is how everyone does it."
Lucey said he was ready to fight for his clients after learning that the situation had become unsafe for some residents.
"A homeowner actually testified that some stones fell off her house and hit her in the head when she was walking out of the garage," Lucey said.
Natalie Zitek purchased one of the homes in 2013 for $290,000, and claimed that she's since had issues with windows, brick, stone, concrete, and drainage.
"This is just not acceptable," she said in court on September 7.
"My house can't look like this. You did a repair and no you have left it looking worse than what it was originally."
Residents fear that they will only get a fraction of their buying price back when they try to sell their home after news of the issues broke.
“Knowing what I know now, there is no way I would have ever had DR Horton build a home,” Zitek said.
“My dream home that we loved so much on June 15th of 2013 and we were so excited to stay in that night, that dream became a complete nightmare.
"I would never hire D.R. Horton ever again to build a home.”
Lucey pointed out that all issues in homes have to be pointed out to potential buyers.
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"What they are doing in this state, and other states, but obviously I have more concern about this state, what they are doing throughout this state is just wrong," he said.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to DR Horton for comment.
