COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The repair punch list for a newly built home has hundreds of items. It is so extensive that licensed builder Lisa Wagener has a blunt assessment.
“It’s actually really sad for the homeowners, but I call it a $2.2 million teardown,” Wagener told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
The East Cobb County modern new construction home was the dream home for Sudha Medapati and her family.
“To fix this home is a million dollars and more. Oh my God, I can’t even imagine,” Medapati said.
Medapati wanted a modern home because her autistic son can only sleep comfortably in open spaces.
In their previous home, “he always used to be in the garage for sleeping,” she said.
The problems with the home involve everything from leaking doors and windows to hallways and staircases not built to code.
“The problems with this house start with the roof and continue all the way to the foundation,” said code certified building inspector Mark Cordle.
“We have life safety issues here, we have structural issues,” he continued.
The front door to the house would not even shut. Medapati says the developer’s response was, “They were like, oh, Cobb County is a safe place.”
The Medapatis sued developer Mods of East Cobb and its owners, Jay and Candice Crawford. They won a $1.6 million judgement in Fulton County Court but have not received any of the money.
“He doesn’t know how to build a home. He doesn’t know the basic things,” Medapati said about Crawford.
The Medapatis are not the only ones to take legal action against Jay and Candice Crawford alleging poor construction of their homes.
A Sandy Springs couple won a $715,000 judgement against the Crawfords for problems with their home.
A paralyzed Cobb County man is suing for $860,000.
Along with a long list of alleged construction defects similar to the Medapatis, he also says he cannot physically access most of his home that he had built to be handicap accessible.
His lawsuit claims the Crawford’s never completed his elevator.
Jay Crawford has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram where he shows off his modern home constructions.
He does not have a contractor’s license. He works under the licenses of others.
“I call that license running,” said the Medapati’s attorney, David Merbaum.
“Now you have an unlicensed contractor obtaining a building permit,” he continued.
Channel 2 Action News Investigates tried for weeks to talk to Jay and Candice Crawford.
We sent multiple emails to more than a dozen email addresses, we called, texted and even stopped by their current construction projects in Southwest Atlanta and their own Cobb County modern mansion.
We received no response except an Instagram that appears directed at Channel 2 Action News.
Crawford wrote, “F you and them. I don’t care how the story gets told.”
Right after that post, Crawford blocked Gray on Instagram.
There are also big questions for Cobb County.
“How Cobb County would have issued a Certificate of Occupancy is beyond imagination,” structural engineer Lauren Wayne said.
“I would have put a stop work order on it because of the significance of the issues that are present and readily visible,” Mark Cordle said.
He worked for several years inspecting properties and issuing certificates of occupancy in neighboring Fulton County.
Our open records request did turn up multiple violations Cobb inspectors cited throughout construction.
“The things that had been pointed out had not been corrected,” Cordle said.
But Cobb County officials refused to answer any of our questions about how the home got a certificate of occupancy.
“Whoever did that, that was an unpardonable sin, in my opinion, when it comes to code enforcement,” Cordle said.
A Cobb County spokesperson said they could not respond, “because this involves litigation and potential further litigation.”
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