Beach family goes it alone in suit over Chinese drywall

VIRGINIA BEACH

Ben Proto is mad. He's mad at his builder. Mad at his insurance company. Mad at his bank.

Proto, like hundreds of homeowners, has a home built with tainted Chinese-made drywall. The gases released by the drywall have damaged his electrical appliances and led him to move his family out of the home.

Unlike many of those home-owners who've added their names to the class-action lawsuit, Proto has gone at it alone, spending the past year negotiating with builders, lenders and insurance companies to get the home fixed.

So far, none of the companies that helped usher the Protos into their home has come to their aid. All have pointed the finger elsewhere.

"If I put a defective screw in someone, I would take care of them," said Proto, a podiatrist. "I wouldn't just be like, 'Oh, you'll have to talk to the manufacturer about that.' "

It started with the builder.

During the early weeks of 2009, the couple went to their builder, A.R. "Rick" Gregor of The Futura Group LLC. He said he would take care of the problem, Proto said. Gregor also offered to help find the Protos another place while a remediation was being done.

Gregor declined to comment for this article but confirmed in an interview last year that he was working with the family and intended to fix their house.

Then came the insurance company.

The couple filed a claim over the drywall with their home insurer, Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Co., on March 11. It was denied on March 12. The insurer has argued that the home-owner's policy does not cover defective products or pollutants.

The couple pressed on, contacting Sam Porter, whose Venture Supply Inc. had imported the drywall. Porter reassured the couple, saying his company's commercial liability insurance would probably cover the drywall, Proto said.

But Porter's insurer had a different response. When Proto called Hanover Insurance Co., a representative told him to take it up with his builder.

Frustrated and still waiting for answers, the Protos in April filed suit in Virginia Beach Circuit Court seeking $660,000 to, among other things, remediate the home and pay for living expenses while the family was dislocated. The couple named in the suit Futura Group, one of Futura's subcontractors, Venture Supply, and Metropolitan Insurance.

Realizing it could be months or years before their case is settled, the couple began looking for a home to rent. They talked briefly with the builder about living in one of his vacant condos in Sandbridge. When nothing materialized by September, the Protos rented a home nearby in their Chesapeake Beach neighborhood, and Ben Proto decided that if he wanted his home fixed, he'd have to do it himself.

To do that, the couple would need a loan for about $250,000. The Protos had already contacted their mortgage lender, Wells Fargo Bank, over the summer to ask for assistance. After months of calling and filling out paperwork, Proto said the lender offered a three-month forbearance.

Next he turned to TowneBank, which had given the Protos a home equity line of credit. The bank also turned them down. Then, after learning that the home was built with Chinese-made drywall, the bank rescinded their remaining $50,000 in available credit, Proto said.

"Without so much as a phone call we had the rug pulled out right from under us," Proto said.

Finally in December, the couple met with Monarch Bank, which offered the Protos a loan to fix their house. In a few weeks, crews will arrive to start ripping down drywall, pulling out wires, replacing fixtures and floors.

The couple hope to move back in with their two children by June and that their lawsuit will result in money to at least allow them to pay off the loans and compensate them for a year of frustration.

"I could have walked away from this house, let it go into foreclosure," Proto said, standing in the home's kitchen last week. "There's no reward for trying to do the right thing. You buy something you can afford. You pay your mortgage. But when something goes wrong, you're left holding the bag."

Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com