Legal advice on builder land screwup

[Ryan Thomas]

Hi all,

My wife and I recently sold our primary residence and are building a new house in a subdivision through a tract builder. The builder required a construction loan so we closed before building began and now own the lot.

The builder had just poured the foootings when we got a call from them saying that the county did not approve the final lot grading for the slope at the back of the property and as a result they would need to remove 5 feet from the back of the property to redo the slope. While this may not seem like a huge deal to some, it has huge consequences on our backyard design.

A little background, we did a lot of research and measuring and picked this lot because it would work best for the pool we want to put in. After talking to our pool guy, losing the 5 feet in the backyard will required a major redesign of the backyard and would work best if we could get an automatic pool cover (wont go into the reasons but I agree with him)

The builder originally offered us 10K as a good faith gesture (original purchase price was ~$750K) or would fully refund our purchase. After talking to our pool guy we came back with $30K (the original 10K +20k for the automatic pool cover). The builder is hesitant. As an alternative we asked if they could put in a retaining wall and they said it was not possible. (I suspect its possible but is cost prohibitive after talking to my landscaper)

My question is, given they sold us the land before final approvals were given and now want to make changes to it that will reduce the value, do I have any legal aspects to this that can help enhance my negotiation position? Obviously, we can walk away but that is worst case scenario that we are hoping to avoid. 

Also, one last thing- the builder is a reputable local builder but does not build nationally.