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one of the guys who cam out is an inspector as well as does home improvement,repairs,etc
Right off the bat he stated that he was going to inspect and as such he would not do any of the repairs as he was neutral. After finding everything he did, he said he would vouch for the fact that due to what he found--it is a long existing problem. There is no way in hell the sellers didn't know because it rains here a lot and this didn't just occur and he found evidence of inside water stains that were not new. Upon hosing down the window, water was running down the inside........
he has a list of things he found and evidence,he says, to support it.
So again I ask--why have a disclosure???
The point of the disclosure is for buyers to feel that they are getting information about the house so that they can make an informed decision. Some people choose to lie on them. This is part of humanity.
Wasn't a window treatment covering the damage? Can you prove that the damage wasn't hidden from the sellers by the window treatment? Can you prove those water stains occurred while the sellers owned the home? Could those stains have been there from a previous owner? They could say that the damage might have occurred during previous ownership and it wasn't disclosed to them and so they never knew about it. Can you prove that isn't true?
I'm not saying you aren't right, but understand that being morally right has nothing to do with being legally right.
I've been down this road as the seller accused of wrong doing. It's no fun and NO I had no knowledge of a problem that cropped up 9 months after we sold the house. The buyers had attorney friends that pursued legal proceedings for free against us and dragged it out and out until our own legal fees were so high that we settled to cut our loses. Believe me - not all buyers are innocent victims and not all sellers are in the wrong.
Oddly enough, we were lied to on the disclosure statement when we originally bought the home and didn't find out until we went to sell it 3 years later. Of course, the original seller was long gone as was her agent. Hmm... we were doubly screwed on that deal.
I've been down this road as the seller accused of wrong doing. It's no fun and NO I had no knowledge of a problem that cropped up 9 months after we sold the house. The buyers had attorney friends that pursued legal proceedings for free against us and dragged it out and out until our own legal fees were so high that we settled to cut our loses. Believe me - not all buyers are innocent victims and not all sellers are in the wrong.
Oddly enough, we were lied to on the disclosure statement when we originally bought the home and didn't find out until we went to sell it 3 years later. Of course, the original seller was long gone as was her agent. Hmm... we were doubly screwed on that deal.
The purpose of the disclosure is to give stupid lawmakers and unscrupulous people involved in the sale of real estate a way to get out of doing the right thing.
The lack of value of the disclosure is a primary reason that "home inspectors" have become so essential. Unfortunately the stuff that "gets missed" from many inspectors is comical, as the OP's experience suggests. There is, unfortunately, no easy remedy. I have seen very few buyers get any sort of satisfaction from the Courts when there is situation without some GIANT evidence of cover-up on the part of seller. The best way to get such info is when a permit was pulled, or even better when the sellers hired but did not pay a contractor in a timely way and there was a mechanics lien filed. Ooops. If there are not such smoking guns you are going to have no real evidence o prior knowledge, and EVEN WITH that sort of evidence the sellers WILL STILL be able to claim (legitamately or not...) that "the contractor said it was good as new" and many courts will accept this...
"Usually a realtor will tell you to find your own inspector or give you a list of a lot of names to choose from. If this realtor recommended this particular inspector, the fraud may be between the realtor and the inspector not the seller." OMG - how stupid can you really be? Give me a break.
Why on earth do people think that inspectors want to cover stuff up and screw their clients? As an inspector, I couldn't care less if someone buys the house I'm inspecting. Why would I benefit from holding something back? To help the Realtor? I don't think so. WHY? If I leave something out, my client may decide to sue me. Why on earth would I want to expose myself to THAT? If a Realtor is so desperate to sell a house, that they decide to conspire against the buyers, and drag the seller in, the inspector, and the appraiser, and the termite inspector, and help create fraud, then why would any of us want to align ourselves with them? For a lousy $350? Give me a break.
To the problem at hand.
1. It is very common for someone to come out and say that someone "should have seen it". They are the "new expert". It's called Last Man In. The last guy to look at something is the NEW expert. and usually trashes everyone that was there before.
2. It is possible the owners did not know. I have been in houses where there have been really bad leaks under sinks, and obviously the homeowner has no clue. When I have called it to their attention (if they are there), they almost always say something like, "Oh my gosh, when did that happen". Some people are so freeking clueless they could have a water stain on their ceiling and never know it, because they never look up.
3. It is possible they did know, and hoped the inspector and everyone else that came in the house would not see it, sell the house, and they held their breath during closing knowing that any second you would bring it up. Tough to prove they knew it, unless you could come up with a bill where they paid someone to fix it.
4. It is possible the window area was covered with blinds or curtains and the homeowners didn't know, and the inspector didn't see it either. For that matter, YOU didn't see it when you did your walk through before you closed on the house. YOU have a certain amount of responsibility in that you did a walk through before closing to check out the house to see if anything was damaged, or had changed since the last time you were there.
5. It also could be that the inspector saw the stains, tested them with a meter and they were dry at the time. The inspector has no way of knowing if the stains are new, or if repairs had been done in the past. No inspector I know runs a hose on a window during a regular inspection.
6. Did the inspectors report say anything about the windows, either in the interior section, or the exterior section of the report? It is possible there was something in the report, and you didn't.
And finally. You should call the inspector, tell them what you found, and ask them to come back out and take a look. One hint.....remain calm and refrain from calling him a crook. You may be surprised at his response.
We are not perfect. It is just not possible to look at every single square inch of a house during the time we have to do the inspection. Sometimes the owners belongings block our view and access to some things (sometimes on purpose). Sometimes we are looking UP at the ceiling stains, and forget to look down at the floor and see the cracked tile.
I try to explain to my clients that I am acting like a hunter. I'm hunting for the big things that may be wrong with the house. Like a hunter that is looking for elephants, I may not notice a few mice that run past me, because I am concentrating on elephants.
The bottom line is you have window problems. You are pissed off, and want to lay blame on someone. Understandable. However, there is a very good chance that no one (including you) noticed the stains from previous leaks, and it would be pretty much impossible to prove the homeowner knew.
Taking the home inspector, or the Realtor to court may not be worth the expense either.
My daughter is prepared to go the distance with them. They apparently lied on the disclosure. I think that constitutes fraud.
She's also disturbed at the inspector.
Surely the sellers know when it gets to an atty. they will have to swear under oath at the deposition they didn't know.
Does a buyer ever personally contact a seller regarding such?
The burden of proof is on your daughter.
If I recall the last time you posted this, you mentioned there were
" custom curtains" in this window. One would think those curtains would be seriously stained, faded and moldy.
And if the seller swears they did not know, then what?
There is nothing to prevent your daughter from contacting the sellers directly but not sure there is anything to be gained by doing so.
your daughter just needs to deal with it. Here is a scenario that happened to us: Major water problems when it rained under the house, didn't know at the time. Seller had to of known, he had 1 sump in the crawl already (and was doing nothing). We ended up spending >$5,000 on waterproofing the entire perimeter of the crawl with a french drain. We know the seller knew it was a major issue, but we knew it wasn't worth our time to do anything other than fix it and move on (this was a few months after moving in).
maybe you just let it go. Could be the reason scumbags get away with fraud.
Thanks for your input.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freshjiv
your daughter just needs to deal with it. Here is a scenario that happened to us: Major water problems when it rained under the house, didn't know at the time. Seller had to of known, he had 1 sump in the crawl already (and was doing nothing). We ended up spending >$5,000 on waterproofing the entire perimeter of the crawl with a french drain. We know the seller knew it was a major issue, but we knew it wasn't worth our time to do anything other than fix it and move on (this was a few months after moving in).
IMO your daughter has very little to stand on. The expense of trying to prove a) the seller and/or realtor knew or b) the inspector was negligent and c) the associated legal fees is likely to be higher than fixing the window, especially when you consider the large amount of uncertainty that you can actually win a judgment...especially since her case is pretty weak. Saying someone "should know" or "should have noticed" is not exactly a legally strong argument.
maybe you just let it go. Could be the reason scumbags get away with fraud.
Thanks for your input.
The reason scumbags get away with fraud is due to lack of proof.
Look all folks are trying to do on this forum is help you understand the reality of a lawsuit. Have your daughter go talk to an attorney. The attorney will have whatever documentation she has to look at and then evaluate whether or not there is enough evidence to have a shot at winning.
The only thing worse than your daughter's current situation would be to engage in a lawsuit and lose.
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