I'll fess up, over the years I've always recommended to my buyers that they should ask for a home warranty when negotiating a purchase offer.  I had heard that some of these companies were pretty shady, but the company that I utilized had always done good by my people, so I didn't give it much thought.

Well last August my girlfriend and I purchased a home that came with a warranty from a company called "Home Security of America".  Everything worked fine until a few months ago with several of the circuit breakers started flipping, even when under a light load.  This went on for a while and got to the point where we were running down stairs to flip a circuit breaker at least one a week.  As you can imagine, it was getting kind of irritating.

Then things got worse.  The electricity started "flickering".  At first it was pretty mild.  Lights would dim, then get brighter, then dim again.  Eventually it got to the point where the flicker was enough to cause the computers to reboot.  In addition, one of the circuit breakers (the one for most of the kitchen) started flipping about every other day.  I called the Home Security of America to request that they send out an electrician.  Which they did.

The guy was nice enough, but when I told him what all was going wrong he zoomed in on the circuit breaker for the kitchen....which I believe that he replaced.  I asked him about the flicker and he told me that it was being caused by the local electric utility's lines coming into our home and that I should call them.  Which I did.

Ameren/UE, the utility, sent a technician out and he spent a good deal of time going over the electric line all the way from out on the street.  He even took the meter base off and examined it.  He knocked on the door and told me that Ameren's equipment checked out.  I asked him what he thought the problem was then and he told me that it would be hard to say.  That the problem was somewhere after the meter and that with these older services - especially ones with Federal Pacific split bus boxes that they could be hard to diagnosis.  He recommended that we have the service and the box totally replaced.  That would be the only way of making sure that the problem was taken care of.

The very next day the electric flickered enough to reboot my computer.  I called Home Security of America and the operator told me that she was going to send the contractor back out, which she did.  When I answered the door he had a disgruntled look on his face and asked me what was going on?  I told him what the Ameren guy had said and he said, "Oh, Home Security will never pay for that!".  I insisted that he at least ask and he said that he would and that he would get back to me.  He then left without even coming into the house!

A couple of weeks went by and I didn't here from them.  The circuit in the kitchen was doing fine, but I went out to the garage to organize my workbench and when I plugged a tiny, 6 inch in diameter space heater in it threw the breaker.  The only other thing that was on at the time was a single, incandescent light bulb!  On two additional occasions we experienced electrical flicker.  I called Home Security of America back.

The operator took my information and later that afternoon I got a call from one of their resolution people who told me that the contractor had told him that I had an over-loaded circuit that was what was causing my problem.  I told him that it wasn't a single circuit, but rather several of them and that the circuit breakers were the least of my worries.  That the electric company had told me that the flicker could ruin my television and computers.  This guy didn't want to hear any of this, that Home Security of America was going to rely upon the word of it's contractor and that there wasn't anything that he could do.

That's when I called and left a message for the president of the company.  When nobody called me back, I called in again and insisted on holding until I got put on the phone with the senior vp of operations, a guy named Michael Herman.  I told Mr. Herman the entire story including what the electric company's technician had said and that I had asked the electrician that had come over to hang some light fixtures for me (a union guy doing side work) what he thought and that they both said that I should have the system completely redone.

That's when Mr. Herman started quoting me from their contract and that there wasn't anything that he could do.  When I put up additional argument he said that they "didn't believe" the utility and some "random" handyman.  That what he could do was to see if he could get another of their contractors to come out to diagnosis my system.  He called me back and told me that I would have to pay $150.00 upfront to have this happen.

By this point I was getting them impression that these guys did this sort of thing all the time and were well practiced at it.  I counter-offered to have a neutral party come check it out and he told me that it wasn't negotiable.

That's when I called the Missouri Division of Insurance and found out that basically home warranty companies aren't regulated in the State of Missouri.  I then called the Missouri Attorney General's office and ended up filing a complaint against them.  While on the AG's web site I saw where they have had 5 complaints against them in the past year.  Curiosity led me to check them out a bit further and I found that they have had numerous complaints with the BBB and that several people had written about negative experiences with Home Security of America on various web sites.  

So, how about you?  Have you had much experience with Home Security of America or other home warranty companies attempting to snake out of fixing something?  Are you concerned at all about recommending a home warranty to a buyer or a seller?  How about liability?  If you recommend a company and they bail on the consumer, will you end up on the hook for a costly home repair?

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc. 

P.S.  I did a search here on AR and found that I'm not the only agent asking these types of questions.  To find out more about home warranties and some of the pitfalls of them check out these posts

American Home Shield and The Home Warranty Business by Bill Cherry

The Not So Beautiful Side Of The Home Warranty Market by Philip Lamachio 

Home Warranty Update by Thesa Chambers 

Gimmick or Real by Ann Cummings