Engle Homes Takes Over Sales in Independence
Posted by Hojin on August 24, 2007
Engle Homes has taken over the development of the Independence neighborhood in Winter Garden recently. The original developer, Transeastern Homes, is no where to be seen. I spoke with one resident there that mentioned many people that had complaints with construction problems and lack of responsiveness with Transeastern Homes but that doesn’t explain why they would walk away from something that will bring money into the company so I did a little digging and found out that Transeastern Homes was bought by TOUSA in August of 2005. TOUSA is the company that owns Engle Homes. I tried visiting the Transeastern Homes website and the Engle page pops up when you visit the Transeastern site. My guess is that Engle will be building out the rest of Transeastern’s numerous central Florida communities.
Southwest Orange County Real Estate 
marcus bagley said
I was looking at homes in the Independence community until my brother told me that the parent company of Engle homes went under. Is their any truth to this? After reading your article I’m assuming he was confused with the details.
Thanks,
~Marcus Bagley
not given said
yes tousa is in chapter 11. they filed in jan 08. the first re-org plan had Standard Pacific buying out tousa but that deal fell through in feb 09 when a price could not be agreed upon. tousa now has until 30 april to file a new reorg plan. if they don’t or this plan is rejected by the court, the creditors will get their chance at a reorg plan.
tousa and engle are also involved in many lawsuits (defective drywall, return of buyer’s deposits, live ordinance)
until the chapter 11 is resolved, the build out of the rest of independence is at risk – the land could end up being liquidated to help pay off debt or a completely new development plan could be put in place. also, you start building a house today, does engle homes have the $$ to complete it? if engle/tousa are liquidated, what happens to the home warranties – who will fix defects?