Dream home turns into nightmare, says couple suing city of Marco Island

It took more than four years for one Marco Island couple to build their dream house.

And now, several years after moving into their beachside home, their dream house has turned into something of a nightmare.

Regina Dayton, 57, and her husband, Timothy Dayton, 55, have sued the city of Marco Island, accusing it of negligence in hiring building inspectors not licensed to do their jobs.

The suit, filed in Collier Circuit Court on Nov. 13, alleges the city was negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of building officials, inspectors and plans examiners.

That negligence, Regina Dayton said, resulted in a house that wasn’t built up to city code and deviated from the plans submitted.

It has also created a feeling of dread for the couple, who wake up every morning wondering what will happen next.

“The issues are never going to go away,” Regina Dayton said. “We feel we have fixed what we can to the best of our ability, (but) every morning you wake up and wonder what’s next.”

The Daytons purchased a less than half-acre lot at 524 Spinnaker Drive in 1998, and in January 2002 hired Kimball Hill Homes of Florida Inc. to build a house on the property.

The company got the official go-ahead to begin construction on the home in September 2003, according to the lawsuit.

The city of Marco Island issued a certificate of occupancy on April 14, 2006, and the couple got the go-ahead to move into their dream home.

Regina Dayton now says she wished they had never received the certificate of occupancy, especially knowing now that she knows the weight it carries in the construction community.

“If we had known what that (certificate of occupancy) meant, I would’ve put whatever pressure I could have not to get the (certificate of occupancy),” she said. “But it was kind of like you were dammed if you do, dammed if you didn’t. Until we physically got into the home and started to live here and started experiencing problems (did we know).”

Those problems were outlined in a June 2008 report by Dennis Franklin, a state of Florida licensed inspection, plans examiner building code administrator. Franklin has served on the state’s building code administrators and inspectors board.

Franklin’s report shows several deviations from the plans, including where the air conditioner was located. The plans, according to his report, put the unit on a slab platform on the second floor when it was on the first-floor 3 or 4 feet above finished ground level. Pool equipment was put in the wrong location. Plans reference placing the equipment in a protected area on the Dayton’s patio, instead it is located on the opposite side of the house.

“This represents a violation of the code as the pool equipment was not placed in the area indicated by the approved set of plans by the city, and further, was not pointed out by the inspector who performed the final inspection on the pool and the house,” Franklin wrote in his 2008 report.

Regina Dayton said last week that since Franklin’s 2008 visits, she and her husband continued to find problems with the house.

The couple has taken legal action against the now-defunct builders Kimball Hill Homes. The couple, in August 2006, sued the company, accusing it of fraud.

But Dayton said she couldn’t get far with that suit — or with the Department Business and Professional Regulation consumer complaints filed against the company — because the city had given them the all clear by issuing a certificate of occupancy.

“There was no interest ... in pursuing things with the city until we started taking the material to Kimball Hill Homes,” she said. “They’d say ... you can’t come to us, your city gave you a (certificate of occupancy.”

Both Marco Island City Attorney Alan Gabriel and Community Development Director Steve Olmsted, who oversees the city’s building department, have declined to comment on the issue.

“Given the fact that there is both an investigation by the (Department Business and Professional Regulation) and pending litigation, I would advise that no additional comment should be provided at this time,” Olmsted said in an e-mail.

Olmsted did say that two city employees referenced, but not named, in the lawsuit have submitted a response to a Department of Business and Professional Regulation complaint filed against them by the Daytons, and the organization has to date “not determined that there is probable cause for a formal hearing.”

The Daytons are seeking financial compensation from the city, but Regina Dayton said retribution isn’t the most important thing for them.

“There is more consumer protection buying a pair of shoes at Walmart than there is building a home in Florida,” she said. “I want to ensure, in my heart of hearts, that no one on this island goes through what the Daytons did. I can not believe this was an isolated incident.”

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Connect with Naples reporter Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster at www.naplesnews.com/staff/jenna_buzzacco