Another Extreme Home Makeover Home Ends up in the Wrong Hands

[Scoops]

This isn't as bad as the family that took in the five orphaned brothers and sisters...got a new home from ABC and then kicked out the kids, but it's close.

LAKE CITY, Ga. (AP) - More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.

Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM crisis.

After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it's set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.

The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC's "Extreme Makeover" demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.

The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighborhood. The home's door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.

Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes' employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple's three children and a home maintenance fund.

ABC said in a statement that it advises each family to consult a financial planner after they get their new home. "Ultimately, financial matters are personal, and we work to respect the privacy of the families," the network said.

Some of the volunteers who helped build the home were less than thrilled about the family's financial decisions.

"It's aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it," Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt, who helped vault a massive beam into place in the Harper's living room, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

[Scoops]

link to pictures of these latest jerks.

Scroll down for pics of the home.


SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMrealitytv.about.com/od/extrememakeoverhome/ss/HarperMakeover.htm

[Skeeter]

Wow -- I always wondered if that would happen.

I've never heard the orphan story. You're kidding, right?

[Monicauf]

See, that's why I don't really like the show. They always overbuild and put in tons of fancy electronic equipment - it just encourages people to act stupid. Plus, half the time, they can't even afford to pay the increased property taxes.

I'm sure there are deserving, non-greedy people out there, but the whole show just goes ridiculously over-the-top. They can make a home wheelchair accessible or fix structural problems without building a McMansion and putting flat panel television sets in every room of the house. So if the original house was a shack, wouldn't that mean that the surrounding houses are shacks, too? Who's gonna wanna buy/live in a mansion in poor-town? And, it will be hard to sell your home if it way over the top of the other homes in the area, that home might be/probably overpriced for their neighborhood. These people are morons.

Why wouldn't they just open a line of credit instead of getting a lump sum loan? More manageable and less of a financial hit when the crap hits the fan. Georgia hit the skids in the housing market waaaaay before other areas -- DOPES. They should start selling off their furnishings to make the payments.

Interesting article, it shows that these people are idiots.

SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMwww.wsbtv.com/news/16980412/detail.html

that just proves their idiocy. I want someone to write off my SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM and then give me 100K. I'll make a point of giving all proceeds to the first lowlife loser "relative" who comes up with a great proposal for a "construction business". Whoever signed them to a loan should be beaten. They could have bought a construction business with $450,000. Why invest it? I'm willing to bet they invested in not working, traveling, and spending money on whatever crap caught their eye. Lottery winners have blown millions, so this isn't anything new. It's still pathetic, but not new.

[Jules]

Hey, Monicauf.....

I just registered myself on that Daily Trivia game of yours! I got all of today's right except for ONE....grrr.....

[Jules]

I also took the IQ test linked to that page....mine dropped a bit. I must be off my game today, lol.....

my I.Q. is 133 as of 7:42 this morning

[Monicauf]

Very cool Jules! The more the merrier, I cannot get on that site from work so if anyone asks just say you know me from this forum. Great people there, I know them from another group and we have played that trivia game for an extremely long time. We play everyday- ten questions timed, have fun!

[Jules]

I only got one of them wrong....very proud of myself. : )

[Jules]

It's weird, because I've seen your signature for months and never even thought to log in and see what it's about.... until today!

[Pal]

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Monicauf;1770254:
See, that's why I don't really like the show. They always overbuild and put in tons of fancy electronic equipment - it just encourages people to act stupid. Plus, half the time, they can't even afford to pay the increased property taxes.

I'm sure there are deserving, non-greedy people out there, but the whole show just goes ridiculously over-the-top. They can make a home wheelchair accessible or fix structural problems without building a McMansion and putting flat panel television sets in every room of the house. So if the original house was a shack, wouldn't that mean that the surrounding houses are shacks, too? Who's gonna wanna buy/live in a mansion in poor-town? And, it will be hard to sell your home if it way over the top of the other homes in the area, that home might be/probably overpriced for their neighborhood. These people are morons.

Why wouldn't they just open a line of credit instead of getting a lump sum loan? More manageable and less of a financial hit when the crap hits the fan. Georgia hit the skids in the housing market waaaaay before other areas -- DOPES. They should start selling off their furnishings to make the payments.

Interesting article, it shows that these people are idiots.

SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMwww.wsbtv.com/news/16980412/detail.html

that just proves their idiocy. I want someone to write off my SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM and then give me 100K. I'll make a point of giving all proceeds to the first lowlife loser "relative" who comes up with a great proposal for a "construction business". Whoever signed them to a loan should be beaten. They could have bought a construction business with $450,000. Why invest it? I'm willing to bet they invested in not working, traveling, and spending money on whatever crap caught their eye. Lottery winners have blown millions, so this isn't anything new. It's still pathetic, but not new.
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I was just logging in to respond and now I don't have to. You said EXACTLY the same thing I was thinking.

They could help 30 people with the money they put into one house. It's sickening to me.

[Zippy]

I have no idea about this show OR this family

But I wonder...did the taxes go up with a new home...? More room would mean more to heat or cool...bigger electric bills etc.

Maybe it just was more then they could afford?

Like I said..I have no clue..just thinking out loud

[Monicauf]

Pal- exactly, the show is good in the sense that they help someone in need, but look at how many more they could help if they did not go crazy with one house.

Zippy- as far as I know their property tax went up, who knows by how much? I am not sure about all the homes they have done, but with this one, in the article link that I posted it says that their house was payed off and they were given 100k so even with the increase in utilities and property tax I would think they could afford it since they no longer have a SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM. I don't know how much they had to pay every month, but to waste so much in so little time is crazy to me.

[Zippy]

HOLY Smokes!

Where do I sign up to get a Extreme Makeover?

I didnt know they paid all that for the family !!!

How on earth could they blow all that? BUMS ! lol

[Scoops]

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Skeeter;1770228:
Wow -- I always wondered if that would happen.

I've never heard the orphan story. You're kidding, right?
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On Easter Sunday 2005, ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition aired an especially poignant episode. Five children, ages 14-21, from the Higgins family were orphaned. A couple from their church, with three children of their own, took them in. The result was 10 people living in cramped quarters.

The show finds families like these and, in the course of a week, rebuilds their home from scratch. The process is edited into a one-hour episode. In the beginning, we are told the tale of woe in as heart-tugging a fashion as possible. Also factoring prominently in every beginning segment are the horrible living conditions and the heroic nature of the people who are flourishing despite the hardship. Then the family is whisked off to a vacation, the house is razed and rebuilt, and the ending segment is the presentation of the house to the always overwhelmed family.

The ending segment is designed to be as heart-tugging as the first. The rebuilt home is always astonishingly beautiful and completely furnished. In the Easter Sunday special, the rebuilt home had nine bedrooms, including one for each child. The show also paid off the SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM.

The Higgins' happy ending did not last. The family that took them in asked them to leave the beautiful nine-bedroom home because it did not belong to the Higgins.

The eldest child, Charles Higgins, who is also legal guardian for the minor children, contacted the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, who could not help. Apparently the 24-page single spaced contract did not give the Higgins any right to the home built as a result of their tragedy. It did, however, give ABC the rights to their story and the episode was rebroadcast complete with happy ending after the Higgins children were already evicted.

As is often the case when good contracts go bad, the Higgins children sued both the couple that had evicted them and the various companies involved in making the show. The claims against the companies involved in making the show centered around the promise to provide them a home.

In a published decision yesterday, the California Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the portion of the contract that required arbitration was unenforceable because it was both procedurally and substantively unconscionable. The Higgins will now be able to take their case through to a full-blown jury trial.

[Jules]

Wow......did it ever say why the family that took them in threw them out????

[Scoops]

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Jules;1770457:
Wow......did it ever say why the family that took them in threw them out????
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I haven't been able to find out why for certain, but the Samoan family that took the kids who are African American in after their parents were killed (in a car crash or fire ?) knew their family from church.

Other people in their parish say that the family that threw them out started writing to Extreme Home Makeover immediately after taking them in. They feel they planned the whole thing to get a new home, and were never really interested in helping the children. As I recall they pretty much kicked the kids out right away.

[Jules]

What a horrible thing for those children....first they lose their parents, and then they lose a home....