Commitments and Contingent Liabilities

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Litigation

We are involved in various litigation arising in the ordinary course of business. In the opinion of management, and based on advice of legal counsel, this litigation is not expected to have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. Legal costs incurred in connection with outstanding litigation are expensed as incurred.

Contract Land Deposits

We generally do not engage in land development. Instead, we typically acquire finished building lots from various third party land developers under LPAs. The LPAs require deposits that may be forfeited if we fail to perform under the agreement. The deposits required under the LPAs are in the form of cash or letters of credit in varying amounts, and typically range up to 10% of the aggregate purchase price of the finished lots. At December 31, 2020, assuming that contractual development milestones are met and we exercise our option,we expect to place additional forfeitable deposits with land developers under existing LPAs of approximately $215,000. Additionally, as of December 31, 2020, we had funding commitments totaling approximately $5,100 under a joint development agreement related to our land under development, a portion of which we expect will be offset by development credits of approximately $2,600.

Bonds and Letters of Credit

During the ordinary course of operating the homebuilding and mortgage banking businesses, we are required to enter into bond or letter of credit arrangements with local municipalities, government agencies, or land developers to collateralize our obligations under various contracts. We had approximately $40,600 of contingent obligations under such agreements, including approximately $12,800 for letters of credit issued under the Credit Agreement as of December 31, 2020. We believe we will fulfill our obligations under the related contracts and does not anticipate any material losses under these bonds or letters of credit.

Warranty Reserve

The following table reflects the changes in our warranty reserve (see Note 1 herein for further discussion of warranty/product liability reserves):


	Year Ended December 31,
	2020		2019		2018
Warranty reserve, beginning of year	$	108,053	$	103,700	$	94,513
Provision	75,288		69,065		62,553
Payments	(63,703)		(64,712)		(53,366)
Warranty reserve, end of year	$	119,638	$	108,053	$	103,700