The News Press reports on a Florida homebuilder in trouble. "The city of Cape Coral is cracking down on a major homebuilder for delays in starting dozens of homes, but the builder says its problems are largely the fault of a bank that stopped financing 380 of them. Last week, city officials stopped issuing permits for Cape-based Hansen Homes because of a backlog of permit applications that had piled up but hadn't been picked up or paid for."

"'We realized they're having financial difficulties' and it wouldn't be right to let them keep piling up more permits without some assurance the work will actually be done, city spokeswoman Connie Barron said, noting that Hansen had accumulated 48 permits plus an additional 169 permits that were voided for sitting unused too long."

"Some customers say they're upset Hansen isn't proceeding fast enough on their houses, but Hansen consultant Duane Davis said that's mainly because First Community Bank of Southwest Florida pulled its financing for 380 homes. Of those, 160 were already under construction and the rest were in the permitting process. Davis said the bank recently reinstated 78 of those loans for houses that are well along in the construction process."

"Chip Black, president of First Community, said he couldn't comment on the situation with Hansen because of bank privacy regulations. But the bank was ordered in June by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to stop making construction loans to commercial builders."

"Homebuyers who can't recover money from a contractor any other way can apply to the state Construction Industries Recovery Fund. You must exhaust all possible remedies, i.e. court judgments. The most an individual can collect from the fund is $25,000. All payments for a specific contractor can total only $250,000. It's first-come, first-served, based on date the fund awards a payment."

"To collect, you must do a search to make sure you've uncovered all the assets of the contractor. If the contractor is in bankruptcy, you must obtain certain bankruptcy documents instead."