Seasons at Lakeside Forest by Richmond American Homes

Reviews

• PC

  Phillip C

  5 days ago
  1.0
  The sales associates will provide a copy of the HOA docs. Those stipulate NO street parking, no commercial vehicles except police vehicles, no buses, no RVs or boats on the driveway over 24 hours, no visible out buildings, trampolines, etc. From the start of the community, it was the responsibility of the builder and HOA management company to enforce the guidelines. Drive around the community and you will see for yourself all the violations. Again, never addressed from the start and only worsened as the community built-out. In addition, garbage and recycle bins setting in front of homes, grills on the driveways/porches, and unkept yards. The concrete work including the driveways are terrible....a real second rate pour. Some driveways have been replaced and are no better. In addition, there are chipped/cracked sidewalks and curbs that have yet to be repaired from damage caused by the builder during construction. Now that construction is finished but the builder has not been back to address these issues. Once again, all of these issues are specifically address in the HOA docs and were not enforced from the beginning which has lead to the current disarray of the community.
• ZA

  Zack A

  Oct 29, 2025
  1.0
  Richmond American makes the process of buying a home miserable. If you choose to live here, do not work with Marcos.
• KK

  Kim Kemp

  Jun 25, 2025
  1.0
  December 2023, we started looking at houses while we were in Florida visiting family. We went through lots of new builds that were crap, we felt Richmond was better quality. When we returned home to Vancouver, Washington. We decided to go through new builds for Richmond American in the area. The communities wanted were very expensive and the quality was not as good as they were in Florida. We were happy with our choice in Tavares, Florida. The building process was fine. I moved down a week before the first walk through. Had some issues, most got fixed before 2nd walk through. After I moved in, of course, I saw other issues. Hubby arrived a month and a half later he was not happy with the finish work, poor paint job, molding etc. He is now repainting all of it. Garage floor was turning to dust and chipping away, big holes forming. We put a claim in and we were told they needed to put a hardener over the top of our garage floor, seems to be doing ok, a band aid fix for sure. Makes me wonder about our foundation, if the garage floor was bad, what about the foundation. We had a home inspection before the 1 year was up. Inspector found our outside A/C unit was not level, we did get that fixed. Inspector also noted our driveway and flickering lights both need to be fixed. We did submit in June 2024, 2 big issues: #1- our lights flicker on and off when A/C or heat turns on. At night when the house is dark it wakes me up, electricians and A/C people have both been out numerous times to the house this past year, and say we need a soft start. Evan the rep, said no, we did that to one house and it did not work and kept saying it was our light bulbs. Not all the houses in our neighborhood have this issue, process of elimination not the light bulbs, electricians agree. When the electricians came back out in May 2025, once again going through everything they shorted out our A/C and it basically got rebuilt. Last email from Evan dated June 11, 2025, said they are trying to figure this out. Seems to me the electricians did and even though electricians told us a soft start should fix the issue, Evan says no. Not all houses in our phase 2 have this issue, just a hand full of us. #2- this is huge, our driveway is disintegrating. Evan came out along the “concrete guy”, that refused to look at videos or even acknowledge issues (concrete guy came out before and said our driveway looks just like his that he just redid). Every time my hubby washes the cars we have a pile of cement dust, new holes appear, seems after each big rain and edges of driveway are breaking away. Hubby power washed plastic shelving, not the driveway just the shelving on low, the power washer left indents from the vibration on the driveway, once from washing plastic shelving and another time he power washed the house. If someone turns around in our driveway, they leave tire marks and divots depending on the type and weight of vehicle. Our cars are in the garage, but our driveway looks like it is very old, stained, chipping with a TON of divots and edges breaking away. Driveway is only 1 years old. Richmond American has replaced in phase 1 a few driveways that did not look as bad as ours. Evan response per email dated June 11, 2025, when I have been asking for a year now when will our driveway get replaced, he said "The driveway is not being replaced. After meeting with the trade, we didn't notice any deterioration. However, we did notice that the surface was caulky but still solid. My contractor suggested that we pour a hardener onto the surface which will eliminate residue. Please keep in mind that any damage caused by a pressure washer is not covered under warranty." So, Evan is telling us we can't use a power washer on our driveway, to wash the house, cars or anything? This tells me they know the cement is not up to code. This is a huge problem! A new driveway should not be "caulky". We did add gutters right after we moved in and keep them free of debris, so water runoff is not an issue either.
• TH

  Tammy Healey

  May 18, 2025
  4.0
  This is a really pretty area which I'm happy about. Fantastic neighbors also. Austin and Lizzy were so great taking there time. Plus taking us into our house to view and plenty of times before closing. I can't thank them enough. Closing was pretty easy. Just word to the wise go over every nick and cranny during your walk throughs. Including running " full cycles" on all appliances. Unfortunately less then a week after being in our new house I discovered on the first day the clothes washer machine is completely off balance and is so bad it stops it in the middle of cycles. And that's if you can get the water to cover the clothes. Unfortunately I have to restart the machine atleast 3 times and then I'm not even sure if the clothes get totally wet until the rinsing cycle. But unfortunately while you aren't using the washer machine it has a continuous leak. That fills the washer machine about 4 inches high. So it's been a lot of fun taking 3 hours to wash a load of laundry. Thankfully GE is able to come out this week. Hopefully I'll get it resolved. Please check the edges of the glass shower . I literally cut about an inch long cut on my finger just trying to remove a towel from it. I texted Carl the supervisor about it. But I guess if it's not in the walk through list it ain't gonna get fixed. Last but not least we had a oak tree in the front yard that was so fried that Austin even mentioned it should be replaced. But then when I asked Carl about it on the 1 st walk through he said if the landscapers break a piece off and it's able to be salvaged they'll determine that. But fortunately for me I read some of the reviews and if it's not literally in the contract to get fixed it won't get done. So if it wasn't replaced guess who would have to replace it out of our own money and probably sooner or later get threatening notes from the HOA. ( which thankfully I heard are pretty nice people out here). So I took it upon myself to break off a piece of a limb and sure enough no green at all. Actually dry and brittle. So thankfully Darious our super nice walk through rep. Wrote on the walk through to replace the tree. If you doubt my word when driving through notice a few dead oak trees in front yards as you drive by. So all and all I am happy so far that we bought here. It seems very peaceful. Just please be particularly careful during your walk throughs to spot everything.
• JF

  Jonathan Realtor of Central Florida

  Jan 31, 2024
  5.0
  Spectacular homes with an RV garage!! Beautiful location, right next to conservation areas. Close drive to the pavilion at Downtown Tavares. Great prices too!

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