Lawsuit update

 It's been a bit since I wrote the events in Brazil, where Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I have been attempting to build a home in the city of her birth. 

    Construction has once again begun, as of this Monday, in a small way. We have a new builder, a project manager, an attorney, an architect and a pool builder. 

 Let me rewind:   

         We had to file suit, and a criminal complaint for fraud was also issued for the original builder of our home, who was tasked with taking an elderly house and expanding it and modernizing it, but who instead seems to have diverted about 90% of the money sent and spent it on... well on lots of things but not on our house. Such construction as WAS carried out was not properly permitted, and used substandard materials. 

     As an exqmple I paid to have the doors of the house constructed out of a beautiful Brazilian hardwood that resembles golden oak. What I got was a poorly fitted front door made out of the right material and about half the number of internal doors made, and these made out of cheap laminate flooring glued to fiberboard. Lol.  

 It's like that all the way. The area has a high water table, so the old foundation was supposed to be mortared over with a polymer mortar to prevent humidity, mold and water intrusion. 

 Nope, some cheap ass thinset, what I think is patching mortar, was used to coat the walls. 

    Anyhow, the local Xeriffe (Sheriff)'s office does the duty of a DA in Brazil apparently. And the criminal inquiry has been well underway, the builder served papers and deposed, etc etc. 

   I don't expect big things, this being Brazil, but I'm hopeful that details being egregious enough and my wife still having a decent footprint in the community will keep things square. 

          In the meanwhile, our architect let us knkw that he has a slight family connection with the builder, and his family had opinions, turns out, so he gracefully stepped down and a replacement took over once he gave a deposition with the sherriff. In addition, some of the subcontractors who also got fucked by the builder reached out and they and my wife and the attorney hashed out an agreement that would see their part of the construction finished so everyone could have at least a little paycheck while the lawsuit wends its' way through the system. I'm still paying twice for a lot of labor and materials, but what can I do? I'm fucked, I need to build goodwill and I'm 5,000 miles away. 

 Still, the demolition of shoddy work has begun, as has the permit process that I also paid for but never got. 

         So, the Tl;dr version is : in process. 

   Still, progress was made, and 4 days ago I was waiting for info on the flavor and stage of the cancer in my thyroid, today it's back to the routine at work, and for once, nothing to bitch about. 

Not bad.