NBC 4 in Washington, DC just published an investigative report on Toll Brothers. (If only we could have trained the on-air reporter to pronounce Tupitza as “2 Pits Ah” instead of 2 pizzas!!!) Their focus was on buyers who lost their down money when they could not get a mortgage. Here is a snippet from the article:
“Pennsylvania-based real estate lawyer Jim Tupitza told the News4 I-Team he sees cases like this “all the time” — customers who think a Toll Brothers contract will allow them to recover their down payments if they can’t get a mortgage or close on their home, when that’s not actually the case.
Tupitza said it all boils down to the “Mortgage Application” paragraph of the Toll Brothers contract, which he said is one of the most confusing contracts in the business.
“If you read it,” said Tupitza, “you will think it says one thing. But if you diagram the sentence like you learned in high school English, you’ll realize it doesn’t say that at all.”