early occupancy law (tenant, contingency, disclosures, agents)
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i sign an early occupancy contract for a house i want to purchase in "as is" from the sell of my current home. contract states the rent will be 300 a month with 100 to go toward the purchase of the property. move in date is july 1, 2009. after i signed the contract i had an inspector inspect and give a written report. the inspector deem the house was in condemned condition and not livable. also i window was found to be broken out and the roof leaks which was not the condition when the contract was signed. my question is, can i void the contract? if i do can i be sued? and how and what do i have to do now?
i sign an early occupancy contract for a house i want to purchase in "as is" from the sell of my current home. contract states the rent will be 300 a month with 100 to go toward the purchase of the property. move in date is july 1, 2009. after i signed the contract i had an inspector inspect and give a written report. the inspector deem the house was in condemned condition and not livable. also i window was found to be broken out and the roof leaks which was not the condition when the contract was signed. my question is, can i void the contract? if i do can i be sued? and how and what do i have to do now?
You have to go by your contract.
What rights does it give you regarding the inspection results?
I have a lot of thoughts here, but the key thing the OP needs to understand is that if they wrote a contract that obligates to something and the contract is valid there is strong chance that they are stuck with it.
GET AN ATTORNEY!
You should have had an attorney review the contract before you and the other party signed it.
If the area where you live requires occupancy permits before you can move in and the property is not going to meet those standards then you should have put that into the contract, as well as determining how much you were willing to spend to get a property in "as is" condition to a safely habitable condition.
The other thought I have is that just because an inspector you hired thinks a place in basically in a "condemned condition" (a term I have NEVER heard from a hired property inspector, btw...) that does NOT provide you with much useful info.
Typically certificates of occupancy are going to revolve around things related to safety of the occupants or the impact of living in the house might have on neighbors -- stuff that is going to result in sewage not being handled properly, safe water being effected, fire hazards, electrical equipment that is hazardous and those sorts of MAJOR issues.
Now I have had inspections on "as is" properties to sorta ball park just how bad a place's roof is, how trashed the subfloors, how much mold damage there is and those sorts of things. If the ballpark costs of FIXING all those things is so high that the structure is not worth saving then the thing to do is to offer only the 'land value' for the property. Even if you could technically live in the place (as the life safety stuff that I talked about above is OK) the value of the home is ONLY the land value. I guess this is sorta like when you get in an accident with an older car -- the insurance company will "total" the car even if still sorta drives, but the cost of fixing all the damage is more than a similar used car would sell for...
Big questions about how you structured this deal too -- cash? Financing? Dates? Deposits? Who was the seller? Did they fill out disclosures? Were their real estate agents involved? Attorney?
I agree with all the others that you need to have an attorney get involved to tell you what your rights are.
But the basic answer is...does your contract address:
If you are going to have an inspection?
If you have a contingency on the results of that inspection?
How many days you have to get an home inspection?
How many days you have to request repairs?
If you stated you were going to have one, and had a contingency on the reuslts, and you had one within the allotted number of days and your time frame to request repairs isn't up yet, then you may have a legal way out of the contract.
Many contracts that are "as-is" still have this contingency, to allow the buyer to find out what "as-is" entails. You request the repairs, they laugh at you because they are selling it "as-is", and refuse to do repairs, and you can legally get out. At least that's how it works in Idaho, but you need a local lawyer to review your actual paperwork.
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