re: Lawyers of the OT. Real estate question…

With all due respect to the OP:
1. Don't be a jackass
2. If you want a custom home, then sit down with an architect and a blank sheet of paper and draw the floorplan and elevation. THEN, you can tell someone don't use my plan.
3. Don't be a jackass

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The builder gave us that assurance that there would be a minimum of 2 lots in between each same floor plan

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How petty can a first time homebuyer be....

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a new house is being built next door to ours that is the same floorplan only with very minor elevation changes.

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Build a custom house in a custom subdivision. I would lose my shite with you if I was the builder.

I get why you’re aggravated. You made an agreement in good faith but one party just completely ignored it. I also agree with others that say that fighting it really isn’t worth it either. Curious did you spend $ on this agreement with the builder (lawyer fees)?

Just thinking maybe go to the builder and say this is messed up but also not worth the legal hassle and if there is something they can do to “make it right”. If he is a decent person maybe he would offer to pay for some new landscaping or something to apologize for the mess up.

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The likelihood you could get a settlement (and collect) after a protracted and expensive legal battle is not good in my opinion.

What are your actual damages?

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This is why agreements like this are fairly easy for builders to write. They know it's not worth much. In the future you might consider a couple clauses in a contract like this including a liquidated damages clause that says "if yall do violate this agreement it's an immediate $50k penalty becuase we wrote this clause for a reason but we cannot necessarily estimate monetary damages long term such as loss of value for having a similar house next door". You'll have to get a local lawyer to write this as I have no idea how that part of Louisiana treats LD's but that's a start.

I'd also include an injunction clause that says something like "in the event we find out yall f**ed up and did it anyways, we have the right to an injuction to stop all work immediately until we figure this out". Again have a local laywer write this.

Finally a clause that states they will pay your legal fees.

What you're doing here is creating a value for the damages that would make them think twice about ignoring your agreement, which they probalby knew about and just didn't care. You're also creating a potentially 2-3 year delay to litigate this, which would blow a second huge hole in their finances on the development. In development like this, time is money, no developer can afford to wait years to litigate.

They see those two clauses and it would make them think twice about doing something dumb.