Why do bad things happen to good people?
That’s a question most would ask after learning of Madeline Frets’ current situation.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Frets said through tears. “It’s so unfair. Truly unfair.”
Watch full report from Chad Mills
Frets, who is from New Jersey, retired from a career in finance in Jan. 2020.
In 2021, she set out to move to Florida and build a dream home in Citrus Springs, complete with a swimming pool for her two grandchildren. She was ecstatic.
The process, though, quickly became hell.
Almost three and a half years after she made her first payment to her home builder, Van Der Valk Construction, the house is still unfinished.
For Frets, it’s been three and a half years of delays, unanswered phone calls, and not knowing if Van Der Valk Construction was squandering the almost $300,000 in retirement savings she used to pay for the home.
“Every time that I would ask questions, it was like they were trying to avoid me. They gave me excuse after excuse,” Frets said.
In Aug. 2023, after being told her home was nearly complete, she sold her New Jersey condo and moved to Citrus County.
“Put everything in a Penske truck,” Frets recalled. “Drove down here.”
But her home was not finished then, and it remains unfinished now.
Without a long-term place to live, Frets bought a mobile home near Inverness. After all the expenses, she says just $70,000 remains in her 401(k).
Despite repeated attempts, she says she was unable to get clear answers from Van Der Valk Construction.
“I don’t remember every excuse they gave me, but sometimes it was permits, sometimes it was workers, sometimes it was supplies, sometimes it was ridiculous,” she said.
Weeks ago, she finally got an answer. The home builder has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
If her home is to be finished, Frets will likely need a new contractor, a lawyer, and more cash to finish the job.
While the home’s interior seems finished, its pool still needs work. It also lacks landscaping of any kind. Weeds have invaded the home’s sandy exterior.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to lose it,” Frets said tearfully. “Lose my home. Something that I’ve worked so hard for. I’ve saved my money. Sacrificed vacations, trips, whatever, to have this home.”
In bankruptcy court filings, Van Der Valk Construction, the homebuilder, reports more than $1 million in liabilities but less than $100,000 of assets.
The documents show that at least 58 home buyers, multiple subcontractors, and others are impacted.
Though the situation is heartbreaking for all who are impacted, Frets’ plight stands out.
During her career in finance, she worked in lower Manhattan at One Liberty Plaza, a building adjacent to the World Trade Center. Frets was there, walking to her building, on the morning of September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists who had hijacked commercial airplanes.
“It was a traumatic experience for me,” she said. “I still can remember and I still hear the screaming and the chaos.”
She can also still hear the second plane hit the South Tower.
Luckily, she ran to safety before the towers collapsed, but it’s what she couldn’t escape that she still lives with.
She believes the cloud of contaminants that shrouded much of Lower Manhattan contributed to the diagnosis she got 21 years later. She has stage 4 lung cancer.
At the time of that diagnosis, she was given just six months to live. She’s exceeded that expectation but continues to live on borrowed time.
“I’m not doing well,” she said. “I need to live in this house before I die.”
How much more time can she borrow? And will it be enough to see her Florida dream become reality?
Right now, Frets is praying daily. She’s still hopeful she will move into her Florida dream home.
"Even if it’s for a week...To live in it and enjoy it, and know my sacrifices throughout my whole life working — that I was able to enjoy it for the rest of whatever life I have in me.”
Van Der Valk was also building many homes in Inverness Village 4, a Citrus County neighborhood that has attracted constant criticism for years, because it was built without paved streets or a drainage system.
Over the years, the sandy streets have eroded into treacherous canyons. In other areas, the thick sugar sand has trapped delivery trucks and an emergency vehicle.
Court documents show the homebuilder is blaming his company’s financial troubles on legal actions sparked by the neighborhood’s woeful road situation.
ABC Action News contacted Van Der Valk Construction and its attorney but did not receive a response before the time of publication.
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