What are reasonable fixes to ask seller? (appraised, credit, furnace)

[steiconi]

As a bargaining chip, you might find a way to point out that the sellers now know about all the problems your inspection found, and have to disclose them to other buyers.

[Listener2307]

So much of this depends on the seller and the contract.

As a seller, I would get my home inspected and appraised before I ever called the realtor. That way I would KNOW what I was selling.

But once I have agreed on a price I would not renegotiate. The buyer will either proceed or cancel based on his inspection.

[esmea]

Originally Posted by cully

How about the HOA you can't find much about? You got the documents? You got the last year or so of meeting minutes? You ascertained their financials?

Is there a special assessment coming up?

You say there are a lot of renters around. How is that effecting sales there, for your future reference? Are buyers able to get the financing they want? Or, as I've seen some places, are these units rentals because the owners have not been able to sell, so they move on and rent out their unit?

And then HOA finances can suffer. I have known where such a situation makes a board (made up of some of these same owners) hesitant to collect a special assessment because they know owners (and themselves) just don't have the extra money.

Does you area require a report on the condition of the property every so many years? What were the latest results?

I have not received the HOA documents as of now so it is difficult to say. There is not much online about the complex, usually i can find reviews from renters or associations web pages but not this time. I should be getting the documents the latest tomorrow since escrow is supposed to send it to me within 7 days of depositing the down payment amount. I don't think there might be too much of a problem selling, the market it's extremely hot at the moment. Homes last from 3-10 days on the market. This house was on the market for 3 days before they accepted my offer.

I will go over all the documents once i get them and hopefully i can find many answers soon. I am considering walking away depending on the HOA documents.

[esmea]

Originally Posted by steiconi

As a bargaining chip, you might find a way to point out that the sellers now know about all the problems your inspection found, and have to disclose them to other buyers.

I hope that he discloses everything to the next buyer if my sale doesn't go thru. It would be so easy to mask many of the problems such as just replacing the loose tiles without caring if there is damage below or not. I am now feeling a little insecure about this seller since there is a couple of parts that seem new and i wonder if he just change some things to not raise any other flags.

[esmea]

Originally Posted by just_because

Water damage and/or bad plumbing is a big worry. Someone mentioned a flow restrictor in the shower head and I would also add to that the possibility that the shower head is gunked up with scale and/or sediment. This only takes a few minutes to clean if this is the case. But if it's something more sinister, who knows what the cost could be.

Loose tiles are usually caused by bad grouting between tiles and/or broken sealant between the tub or shower tray and tiles. Small holes in grout (which is not really very waterproof even if intact) slowly causes the whole wall to be waterlogged. If cement board is not used, regular drywall will just quickly degrade when it's wet and the tiles won't stick to it. Mold forms and it's a big mess. Often you can't reuse the original loose tiles and it's hard to match new tiles with the original ones causing a need to retile a large area (even so, the water damage usually extends far away from the area of loose tiles). A proper fix is usually expensive, requiring removal of all tiles in the effected area and drywall back to the studs. Proper fix means replacing drywall with cement board and 'tanking' the shower to make it waterproof. The best (but very expensive) fix would be to redo the whole shower assuming that it was not done right to begin with (i.e. no cement board and not 'tanked'). Otherwise, you will forever be chasing the problem around and risking further damage to your own unit and the one below.

Just a few thoughts. Good luck.

Thanks for your advise. It is not actually flow restriction in the shower head, definitely not because its a water saver shower head. The water its just not coming out, it drips a little bit.

I do not want to ask the seller to fix the tiles because he might just replace the tiles without checking if mold could be growing behind all that moisture like you mentioned. It looks like a simple fix but it could be a very big issue

[just_because]

Originally Posted by esmea

Thanks for your advise. It is not actually flow restriction in the shower head, definitely not because its a water saver shower head. The water its just not coming out, it drips a little bit.

I do not want to ask the seller to fix the tiles because he might just replace the tiles without checking if mold could be growing behind all that moisture like you mentioned. It looks like a simple fix but it could be a very big issue

I did not draw the distinction but I agree with others that if you pursue this, you should be asking for money off the price/credits so that you can have all the repairs done yourself and to your satisfaction. In my earlier days, I once agreed to have the seller fix something and it was a disaster for us both as what seemed simple quickly got complicated and there were misunderstandings over how it would be fixed, etc. In good faith, the seller wanted us involved with the repairer to make sure we were satisfied but that did not help as tradespeople do not work well with two 'masters' and it just further complicated things. Better and cleaner for both parties if the buyer takes the money and does it themselves.

Generally, you should look at the money off or credits back as a way of reducing (not eliminating) the risks. You never can be sure what repairs will cost or the true extent of the damage (especially true for water damage) until the repairs are started. It might sound attractive to have the seller take the risk that repair costs will be more than estimated but in the end, as others have said, they will always choose the least expensive repair options.

[cully]

Originally Posted by esmea

I have not received the HOA documents as of now so it is difficult to say. There is not much online about the complex, usually i can find reviews from renters or associations web pages but not this time. I should be getting the documents the latest tomorrow since escrow is supposed to send it to me within 7 days of depositing the down payment amount. I don't think there might be too much of a problem selling, the market it's extremely hot at the moment. Homes last from 3-10 days on the market. This house was on the market for 3 days before they accepted my offer.

I will go over all the documents once i get them and hopefully i can find many answers soon. I am considering walking away depending on the HOA documents.

I believe you said you were meeting with you agent soon. There is a prescribed period for home inspections and dealing with them. There is generally a defined period for receiving the HOA documents. Some areas even define a number of items that have to be in those documents. You may even have a contract addendum stating these things.

After receiving the HOA documents, there is often a period during which you can cancel the contract.

If there comes a time when you decide to go ahead and purchase and therefore remove your inspection contingency....be sure you check that you are not also signing the HOA document contingency. Sometimes a person signs that because it gets slipping in with the paperwork, never saw the HOA documents and then is very unhappy with the HOA situation.

All the best in your decision making.

Keep us updated.

[esmea]

Originally Posted by cully

I believe you said you were meeting with you agent soon. There is a prescribed period for home inspections and dealing with them. There is generally a defined period for receiving the HOA documents. Some areas even define a number of items that have to be in those documents. You may even have a contract addendum stating these things.

After receiving the HOA documents, there is often a period during which you can cancel the contract.

If there comes a time when you decide to go ahead and purchase and therefore remove your inspection contingency....be sure you check that you are not also signing the HOA document contingency. Sometimes a person signs that because it gets slipping in with the paperwork, never saw the HOA documents and then is very unhappy with the HOA situation.

All the best in your decision making.

Keep us updated.

I actually thought that i had to sign the HOA contingency along with the inspection contingency but my agent explained to me yesterday that it would be separate. She also let me know that escrow told her they sent the HOA docs last night and i should be getting them tonight. We are requesting for the master shower to be functional ( water flow), to open up the other shower and check whats going behind the tiles, and a credit for the furnace. Not full credit.

I will keep you updated how it goes

[borninsac]

To the OP, what will your offer price buy you if you go back to the market? On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you about this particular property?

Answers to these questions will answer your question.

[esmea]

Just a quick update:

I spoke with my agent and we got some quotes for the bathrooms and the electrical safety hazard. This is a quote for fixing what we can see in the surface and not really considering that it could be very bad underneath the tiles. She said that since we had a lot of competition (there was a higher offer than mine after our offer was accepted according to the agent's seller) and it's a very hot market in San Diego, that she did not want to push too much for a credit. The agents had been communicating and the seller did not want to do any repairs to the unit and he was willing to give a credit. So at the end we asked for a 2900 credit, 2600 for repairs and 300 for credit my agent asked the other agent for the home inspection. I think they had already talked about this because my agent was sure we were going to get the home inspection credit.
The unit's appraisal came 7k higher than my offer so my agent thinks we can definitely recuperate a lot of the money we will be putting into the unit.

My agent said we should not ask for the water heater and the furnace since both are in working conditions. So we didn't. The seller took a bit to reply for our request for repairs, almost 2 days, but he did not counter the dollar amount. Probably we could have gotten more but my agent did not want to push it. I think she doesn't want to loose the sale now Maybe i should have pushed harder.

Something else came up that makes me a little suspicious of the seller:

I received the HOA docs and on the meeting minutes i can see that he has been called for hearing in about 5 of the 12 months of minutes i have. On the first time he was called for a hearing it says that there is scorching on the walls from his heater vents and he needs to fix it, or HOA will do it. Finally someone went to represent him to the hearing, i think they put a lien into his unit, and they got an extension to fix that problem. On the home inspection, the inspector said that the unit itself it's in original condition, but the exhaust pipes appeared to be new. He said most likely the unit is no longer working correctly and the pipes are rusting. His quick fix was to change the pipes but eventually they will start rusting again and the scorching will continue. He most likely knew about the furnace and he chose not to disclose it or repair it hoping the buying would not find out. I have not removed any contingencies yet and i got the HOA docs after i asked for the credit so now idk what to do. I am supposed to removed the contingencies today.