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We have lived in our house for a year now and have had non-stop problems. We had a temite inspection, and he did not find anything. Exactly one hour after closing we lifted up a rock, several more later and discovered all of the tanbark surrounding our house was infested. They were not in our house but we had to pay $1000 right off the bat to insure we would not have further issues.
The major issue at hand however is our roof, several months ago we noticed that our bedroom ceiling was sagging. We found out that their was a lousy recent fix in the whole construction of the roof over our BR. The main beam from one side of the house was not connected to anything and just hanging, while another huge beam was laying on the drywall causing the sagging in our room. We found out that the inspector did not even go to this part of the house, b/c it was difficult to get to. He had to crawl!
After we "fixed" that problem, the roof started to leak! All of these roof problems were in the same area, and it was stated in the disclosure that their was water damage on the 1st floor but nothing about fixing the roof.
I believe that the seller possibly did a lousy job on the roof leak fix and expected us not to notice b/c of the difficult access and of course did not disclose this. I also think the inspector was absolutely horrible.
A guy I hired to cut down some trees noticed my aweful roof and contacted me right away about nails coming out and the shingles being layered the wrong way...towards the weather! If this guy noticed, how come the inspector didn't.
BTW, total damages are well over $5000, but prob. under $10,000. Is there anyway to prove the seller did not disclose info? Should I find a lawyer? Also, we paid less that $200,000 for the house (which makes the fix-ups quite a huge percentage of total cost), and only plan to be there for a few years. We bought the house thinking nothing really needed to be done. Help!!!
Talk to your agent, a year is fairly long, and probably hard to go back now. Some home inspectors are insured, and to show they missed, and were in error, could have some recourse. Good luck, and hope this helps.
In order to hold the seller accountable you have to be able to prove that they knew about the defects and failed to disclose. Do you have proof that they knew. I mean something you can hand a judge and say...see they knew.
I would call the sellers and ask what contractor did the work on the sagging roof. The seller may have paid a licensed contractor and thought the problem was fixed. You don't know. So...call the seller find out if someone licensed did the work. Then get some estimates and ask the contractor to pay for the repairs.
Backward shingles is pretty bad for an HI to miss. I would have having a conversation with them as well.
How you handle this depends on your style. I like to talk to people first before I bring in the sharks.
Don't know if this varies by state but in our state the home inspector is only liable for up to the cost of the home inspection. It says it in the disclosure that the buyer signs at the time of the inspection. If you still have it, pull out your home inspection paperwork to see what it says.
As far as the Sellers, I agree that unless you can prove to a judge that they knew, there is nothing you can really do. It would be a good idea to find out who the contractors were and call them back to correct the issues. It would be even better if you were able to get receipts from the sellers for the work that was done if they still have them.
Don't know if this varies by state but in our state the home inspector is only liable for up to the cost of the home inspection. It says it in the disclosure that the buyer signs at the time of the inspection. If you still have it, pull out your home inspection paperwork to see what it says.
As far as the Sellers, I agree that unless you can prove to a judge that they knew, there is nothing you can really do. It would be a good idea to find out who the contractors were and call them back to correct the issues. It would be even better if you were able to get receipts from the sellers for the work that was done if they still have them.
One thing I didn't mention was that this house was somewhat of a flip. The guy only owned it for about 6mo-1yr and sold it, never lived here. An old women lived in the house prior and the house deteriorated during that time, she was the only other owner.
We did contact our agent, seller and the HI. In our contract w/ the HI it said that he can be held accountable for up to double the fee we paid them. He only conceded to paying about $250(he agreed that the roof issue was his error but feels he did his job properly w/ the termite inspection and would not agree to a full reimbursement), which we have't agreed to yet, our cost are above and beyond $250 and I truely think he is responsible for all of this. We have the potential to get $600 out of him.
The seller has been a nice guy, and he contacted my husband and denies that he actually did any work on the roof or the attic space over our bedroom. The thing is, there is new wood. Either way, I doubt that the seller would be willing to give receipts for contracters if he is claiming that he did nothing to the roof.
There was water damgage in our house before we bought it and we knew this. We were under the impression that is was cause by the gutters being close to the house. Upon seeing the fix up jobs on the roof and the attic space, I think it's pretty obvious that the roof leaked in the past. But there was no disclosure of this. Does anyone have any suggestions about proving the seller did this? He is denying it.
The seller did some other shady things such as cover up our front sidewalk with a flower bed in order to avoid the cost of grinding out tree roots that covered them. That cost us another $800 to fix. It's just crazy that we had to put all of this money out in a year for things we were unaware of.
I almost always keep my clients from buying Flip Homes. The investor puts just enough cheap paint & lower end repairs to make it look good to unwary eyes.
Usually if you look real close on a Flip House you can see the poor quality of the repairs & updates.
It may not have been the flipper who made the repair to the roof. It could have been someone who did a lousy job for the previous owner. If there was evidence of water intrusion I would have had a roofer inspect the roof in addition to the home inspector. If the seller does not admit to making that repair you will have a very hard time proving it in court.
Did you get an actual termite inspector to inspect for termites? I have never had a home inspector who did a termite inspection, although I did once have one who noted that he saw evidence of wood destroying organisms and recommended a termite inspection.
Flower bed over the sidewalk? Did you not see that and wonder why it was like that?
I don't mean to make light of the troubles you are having, but it sounds to me like you overlooked some obvious things prior to the purchase that are now haunting you.
Flips are typically the worst homes. I would bet the flipper really didn't do any work on it and it probably was the previous owner. There are good flippers out there, so this is not directly at those that actually care about their work, but most put in the cheapest carpeting, and paint the walls and call it good.
If the seller never lived there, then you are going to have a hard time proving he knew anything. You are also stating you were aware that there was water damage to the house.
I'm a little surprised that knowing there was water damage that you didn't do a mold inspection or roofing inspection to verify the cause. Didn't your agent make any recommendations to help you out with this?
I agree with racelady, a flowerbed in the middle of the sidewalk?
Well let me defend myself in saying that we were first time home buyers and put our faith in a real estate agent, that recommended the home inspector. These things do seem obvious to me now, I have learned a lot from a year ago. The seller did contract a lot of things out and yes, it was not a real termite inspector, the HI said he could do it, so he did. The water damage was from gutters being close to the house as stated in the disclosure...we did not know anything about roof damage, however we did tell the HI to pay special attention to that part of the house and he did inspect the roof, just didn't do a good job. I can tell you for sure, next time I am going to hire a team of inspectors!!
About the flower bed, there was a sidewalk connecting our house to main sidewalk along the road. He covered up the one going to the driveway with plants/bushes. You would not expect to find cement under it.
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