Lawsuits against America’s Home Place have centered on three recurring problems: mold in newly built homes, foundation failures, and disputes over whether construction was actually finished. The cases that reached appellate courts turned less on the defects themselves than on two legal questions: whether homeowners can sue the builder in negligence at all, and whether the arbitration clause in AHP’s standard contract will be enforced. Courts have answered the first question narrowly and the second one firmly in the company’s favor.
The Virginia Mold Case: Kerlavage v. America’s Home Place
Jeffrey Kerlavage contracted with AHP in the summer of 2014 to build a home in Virginia, with construction starting that October. After the family moved in, Kerlavage’s son found mold growing in the crawl space. An AHP employee acknowledged that mold had been present during construction and that the company had hired a pest-control subcontractor, PermaTreat, to treat it at the time. Kerlavage said the remediation had not been thorough enough to keep the mold from returning.1FindLaw. 2020 Case Update: In Re Kerlavage v. America’s Home Place, Inc.
He sued AHP and five subcontractors who had handled HVAC, vapor barrier, carpentry, waterproofing, and mold remediation work. His complaint included actual and constructive fraud, a Virginia Consumer Protection Act claim, and negligence. In March 2019, the Spotsylvania County Circuit Court threw out the fraud and consumer-protection counts for lack of specificity but let the negligence claim survive, reasoning that a homeowner and builder can owe each other duties in both contract and tort.2FindLaw. 2019 Case Update: Kerlavage v. America’s Home Place, Inc.
That win did not hold. Later in 2019 the Virginia Supreme Court decided Tingler v. Graystone Homes, and the Spotsylvania court reread Kerlavage’s case through that decision. It reversed itself and dismissed the negligence counts, finding that because all of the alleged failures related to work required under the construction contract, the claims were “founded in contract and not in tort.” Kerlavage had not alleged that the failed remediation caused harm beyond the original mold problem, and he had not alleged the subcontractors tried to conceal what was left, so the narrow negligent-repair exception did not apply.1FindLaw. 2020 Case Update: In Re Kerlavage v. America’s Home Place, Inc.
How Tingler Limits Homeowner Suits in Virginia
The Tingler ruling matters because it closed a route Virginia homeowners had used against builders. Before Tingler, some circuit courts allowed tort suits over shoddy workmanship, especially where defects caused personal injury or health problems like mold exposure. The Virginia Supreme Court rejected that path, holding that when a builder’s duty to do something exists only because the contract says so, failing to do it is a breach of contract, not negligence.3FindLaw. Tingler v. Graystone Homes, Inc.
The court separated failing to act (nonfeasance) from a wrongful act during the work itself (misfeasance). A builder who never installs required flashing has breached the contract. A builder who drops a beam on a bystander has committed a tort. The distinction changes the remedies available, including punitive damages and the length of the limitations period. The court also observed that the Virginia legislature had given new-home buyers specific statutory protections, including an implied warranty of workmanlike construction, but had stopped short of extending product-liability principles to residential construction.4Virginia State Bar. Defective Construction Causing Personal Injuries
The practical result: a Virginia homeowner with a defect complaint against AHP or any builder will most likely need to bring a breach-of-contract claim, unless there is proof of an affirmatively harmful act that goes beyond a failure to perform.
Rampey v. America’s Home Place: Foundation Failure and a Signature Dispute
The Alabama case took a different shape. Gregory Rampey contracted with AHP in August 2012 to build a home in Chambers County. After he took possession, he reported that the foundation was settling and sinking and causing significant structural damage. AHP tried to stabilize the foundation and repair the damage; those efforts failed. Rampey sued in Chambers Circuit Court in March 2013 with ten counts related to the construction.5FindLaw. America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Rampey
The fight that reached the Alabama Supreme Court was not about the foundation. AHP’s standard contract contains a binding arbitration clause routing disputes to the American Arbitration Association or another designated provider, and AHP moved to compel arbitration. Rampey claimed his signature on the line beneath the arbitration provision had been forged.
In October 2014 the Alabama Supreme Court sided with AHP. The court held that the absence of a signature on the arbitration line itself was “of no consequence” because Rampey had initialed the arbitration provision, initialed a separate clause acknowledging he had reviewed every paragraph, and signed the contract’s final pages. A party cannot claim the benefits of a contract while shedding its arbitration clause. The case was sent back to the trial court with instructions to compel arbitration.5FindLaw. America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Rampey
Cassidy v. America’s Home Place: Trying to Vacate an Arbitration Award
Dennis and Ashley Cassidy hired AHP under the same arbitration-clause contract to build their home in Georgia. They disputed whether the home was “substantially complete.” AHP demanded a final payment of roughly $93,700; the Cassidys refused, alleged construction defects, and sought the cost of fixing them.6FindLaw. America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Cassidy
An arbitrator ruled for AHP, finding the home substantially complete and the full contract balance owed. The Cassidys then went to superior court to vacate the award, arguing AHP had not followed procedural requirements during arbitration and that the arbitrator had disregarded the contract’s terms. The trial court denied AHP’s application to confirm, but in November 2009 the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed. The Cassidys had kept participating in the hearing without objecting at the time, waiving their procedural complaints, and interpreting the contract was the arbitrator’s job, not the court’s. They had offered no concrete evidence that the arbitrator intentionally disregarded the law.6FindLaw. America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Cassidy
What AHP’s Arbitration Clause Means If You Have a Dispute
The Rampey and Cassidy cases both turned on the same clause. AHP’s standard contract designates the American Arbitration Association and Demars & Associates as arbitration providers and authorizes the arbitrator to award attorney’s fees and costs.5FindLaw. America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Rampey Courts in both Alabama and Georgia have enforced it over serious objections, including a forgery allegation and a challenge to the arbitrator’s handling of the process. If you are already in a dispute with AHP, you should assume it will be decided by a private arbitrator rather than a jury, and that late-arriving procedural objections you did not raise during the hearing will likely be treated as waived.
Complaints That Never Reached a Courtroom
The Better Business Bureau lists eight complaints against America’s Home Place over a recent three-year period, six of them classified as service or repair issues. Five of the eight were marked resolved. The complaints describe cracked sheetrock, separating wood flooring, leaking bathrooms, mold from poor sealing, and structural concerns flagged by forensic engineers. Some homeowners also alleged “bait and switch” pricing and departures from the blueprints.7Better Business Bureau. America’s Home Place, Inc. – Complaints
Consumer-review aggregators describe similar patterns. Homeowners have reported plumbing leaks requiring thousands of dollars in owner-funded repairs, bowed walls and framing problems, floors that needed support beams added after the fact, and warranty claims that went unresolved for more than a year. Scheduling delays and project-manager turnover come up repeatedly, along with cost disputes. One homeowner alleged the company reduced a home’s floor plan by 200 square feet without notice and then quoted $30,000 to restore it.8PissedConsumer. Americas Home Place Reviews
AHP operates as a custom on-your-lot builder, so the customer usually owns the land and the actual construction is carried out by local subcontractors. That structure sits underneath both the appeal of the model and many of the disputes above: workmanship depends heavily on which subcontractors are available in a given market, and the contract that governs the relationship is the same one that sends any resulting fight to arbitration.9America’s Home Place. About Us