From dream home to lawsuits: Customer says contractor stops communication

DES MOINES, Iowa — Levi Johnson and his wife were excited to build their dream home on their father’s property, just adjacent to where they currently live south of Panora.

“We initially decided to go with Davis. We felt like, you know, they were great to work with in and out of the office, all the reviews online seemed to be great,” said Johnson. Little did he know that after construction started in November 2024, things would get more difficult.

There were issues arising when Johnson asked the contractor, Davis Custom Homes, to see if there can be fixes to some issues caused by some of the work. Another red flag for Johnson was that mechanical liens were being filed by subcontractors working on the property, which means that the subcontractors weren’t being paid out for the work they were doing.

Johnson decided to hire a private engineer to observe his house under construction, confirming that there were issues the contractor would need to address.

“We did present the information from the private engineer, we had a sit down meeting in their office, we did that twice I believe. We were both on a dead head, we were not willing to compromise on that, as well they were not willing to fork up the money needed to fix the issues. I believed that is what stemmed them to reach out to their attorney, was they felt like they didn’t need to do anything,” said Johnson.

After working through the legal channels, Johnson hit a dead end as Davis Custom Homes legal team would not be hearing any future meetings. Johnson and a group of around 20 homeowners met with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday to give the office information regarding each specific situation.

WHO 13 News went to Davis Custom Homes property on Wednesday. The property landlord shared that the tenants of the building had paid July’s rent, but he had not seen them since Monday, July 6.

A contractor was on the scene as well, he told WHO 13 News that he was out $500,000 from his work with Davis Custom Homes. He just got back from vacation on Monday, July 14 and the office was closed and no one was around, and he couldn’t get in contact with the owners of Davis Custom Homes.

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