Two Ocala couples have filed stucco defect lawsuits against D.R. Horton in Marion County Circuit Court, alleging that the nation’s largest homebuilder improperly installed the stucco systems on their homes and violated the Florida Building Code. Tiffany and Ryan Rohde filed the more recent complaint on September 19, 2025, over a home in the Oak Hill Plantation subdivision.1Ocala News. Couple Accuses D.R. Horton of Improperly Installing Stucco System in Ocala Home A second couple filed a nearly identical case a month earlier over a home in the Meadows of Heath Brook.
What the Rohdes Allege
The Rohde home on NE 29th Place was built by D.R. Horton in October 2018. The couple bought it as a resale in December 2021. Their complaint, filed in the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court of Marion County, brings one count of violating the Florida Building Code and two counts of negligence.
According to the lawsuit, D.R. Horton’s contractors “inadequately and improperly” installed the stucco system, and the resulting damage did not stop at the exterior finish. The complaint lists harm to the wire lath, paper backing, house wrap, wood sheathing, interior walls, and interior floors. That pattern, damage moving from the outside of the wall assembly inward, is the signature of water getting behind the stucco and staying there.
The Rohdes are seeking more than $50,000 in damages, not including attorney’s fees. They also want to recover alternative living expenses they expect to incur during repairs, including moving costs and rent while the home is being fixed. They say the defects have substantially reduced the property’s value.1Ocala News. Couple Accuses D.R. Horton of Improperly Installing Stucco System in Ocala Home
A Second Ocala Case With The Same Allegations
The Rohde suit is not the only one. On August 22, 2025, another Ocala couple sued D.R. Horton over a home they bought in 2023 in the Meadows of Heath Brook. Local reporting described the allegations as “nearly identical” to the Rohdes’. The earlier plaintiffs allege their home was “shoddily built,” needs thousands of dollars in repairs, and violates multiple state and national building standards.1Ocala News. Couple Accuses D.R. Horton of Improperly Installing Stucco System in Ocala Home Their names and the additional details of that filing were not publicly reported when the Rohde case was filed.
The Florida Law Behind The Claims
Both Ocala lawsuits rely on Florida Statute § 553.84, which gives homeowners a civil cause of action against anyone who commits a “material violation” of the Florida Building Code. The statute defines a material violation as one within a completed structure that “may reasonably result, or has resulted, in physical harm to a person or significant damage to the performance of a building or its systems.”2Florida Legislature. Fla. Stat. § 553.84
A 2023 amendment narrowed the statute so that only material violations qualify, not any code violation at all.3Stearns Weaver. SB 360 Summary But the law still reaches builders who obtained all required permits and passed all required inspections, as long as the builder “knew or should have known that the material violation existed.”2Florida Legislature. Fla. Stat. § 553.84 Passing inspection is not a defense on its own.
Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal has called § 553.84 a “remedial statute” designed to provide relief when a home is built in violation of the code, and has recognized that stucco defects are often “latent and not readily observable” until damage shows up years after construction.4FindLaw. D.R. Horton v. Heron’s Landing Condo. Assoc. That framing matters for buyers like the Rohdes, who purchased their home three years after it was built.
How Prior D.R. Horton Stucco Cases Have Ended
D.R. Horton has been through Florida stucco litigation before, and the outcomes give some sense of what is at stake.
The largest is the Heron’s Landing case in Jacksonville, where a condominium association sued over defective stucco installation across a 240-unit development. A jury found D.R. Horton negligent and in breach of implied warranties, awarding $9.6 million to cover the cost of removing and replacing stucco, roofs, and windows.5First Coast News. D.R. Horton Negligent in Jax Condo Case, Jury Awards $9.6 Million Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in December 2018, and the Florida Supreme Court declined to review it in November 2019.4FindLaw. D.R. Horton v. Heron’s Landing Condo. Assoc.
On a smaller scale, a 2017 Florida arbitration produced a $40,155 award to homeowners whose four-year-old D.R. Horton home had excessive stucco cracking. The arbitrator credited the homeowners’ experts, who testified the cracking was caused by a failure to build in accordance with the Florida Building Code, and rejected D.R. Horton’s position that the cracks were minor maintenance issues. The arbitrator agreed the only proper fix was complete removal and replacement of the second-floor stucco.6Burnett Law. Stucco Defect Lawsuit Result
Will The Case Stay In Court Or Go To Arbitration?
D.R. Horton’s purchase agreements typically include mandatory binding arbitration clauses that give up the right to a jury trial and bar class actions. Arbitration is private, which keeps other homeowners from seeing patterns of defects across a subdivision.
Courts have not always enforced those clauses. In July 2025, a Louisiana judge rejected D.R. Horton’s motion to compel arbitration in a class action over moisture, leak, and mold problems, calling the provision “a very one-sided arbitration clause” and finding the underlying contract unenforceable.7KATC. Judge Rejects D.R. Horton Claim for Arbitration That ruling let hundreds of families proceed in open court.8WGNO. D.R. Horton Class Action Case Moves Forward in District Court In the 2017 Anderson v. Taylor Morrison stucco case, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal found an arbitration clause void as against public policy because it effectively barred the homeowners from pursuing their statutory building code claims under § 553.84.
The Rohdes bought their home as a resale, not directly from D.R. Horton, which could affect whether any arbitration clause in the original purchase contract binds them at all. D.R. Horton has not publicly said whether it will try to move either Ocala case out of court.
Where The Cases Stand
Both Ocala lawsuits remain active in Marion County Circuit Court. There is no reported trial date, settlement, or substantive ruling in the Rohde case since it was filed on September 19, 2025, and the Meadows of Heath Brook case filed on August 22, 2025 is similarly pending. D.R. Horton has not publicly commented on either lawsuit.1Ocala News. Couple Accuses D.R. Horton of Improperly Installing Stucco System in Ocala Home
If you own a D.R. Horton home in the Ocala area and are seeing stucco cracking, staining, soft spots, or interior water damage, the Rohde complaint offers a template for the kinds of damage courts have treated as consistent with defective installation, and § 553.84 sets the framework Florida homeowners use to bring those claims.