SUN CITY CENTER, FL -- There may be some hope for retirees like Marian and Dick James, who dumped their life savings into their Sun City Center home, which they say it's now worthless."There have always been things wrong that we made excuses for," says Marian James.
Marian says it started with an odor. Today it’s tarnished silver and mirrors, even health problems. She blames it all on defective Chinese drywall and she doesn’t think she should have to pay to fix it.
"Not on my dime,” James says. ”It wasn’t our mistake."
The James say their bankrupt builder WCI Communities confirmed Chinese drywall is in their home and homes across this Sun City Center community and the state.
WCI won’t say how many Florida homes they built with defective drywall. But in a statement the company now says it will "provide for the creation of a Chinese drywall trust and allow the Chinese drywall claimants to pursue causes of action related to the manufacture and installation of defective imported drywall in their homes."
Attorney Mike Ryan, who represents more than a 170 homeowners with defective drywall in Sun City Center and beyond, was in Sun City Center on Wednesday trying to explain what the trust could mean to them.
"The current hope is that through the bankruptcy process the development of this drywall trust will allow us to get all of the insurance proceeds that they would have gotten to cover this as well as whatever lawsuits against third parties," Ryan says.
Ryan estimates as many as 300 WCI homes could contain the defective wall board. And he warns the trust, at this point, isn't a guarantee and adds there is still no solid remediation plan for any of these homeowners.
The trust is part of a WCI’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy. It still has to be approved by a bankruptcy court. There is a hearing set for August 26th.
