Foundation Inspection / Home Buying Question

CommunistCow

I found a property that looks good but it was sold 3/30/12 and the listing then said "Disclosure: Foundation Inspection Recommended. Disclosure: Uninsured due to repair cost exceeds 5K."
It has been remodeled/flipped and just now got back on the market. I've googled around but I don't know where this disclosure came from (FHA Appraisal?) or if the person(s) that bought it would have been required to fix any foundation problems.

Anybody have any insight?

I will of course have the foundation inspected if we decide to put an offer down, but I was hoping to have some more information before that.

Edit: I should note that this property is about 1000ft from a reservoir which is roughly 1500ft in diameter. I'm no expert but I'm assuming property close to a body of water will have a higher water table and possible issues because of it.

Thanatos

So, I am not a real estate expert by any means; I am not a contractor, nor an engineer, nor do I have any sort of exceptional expertise with anything to do with the homebuilding process. That being said, you have a disclosure about an issue that is absolutely not covered by the insurance. You have a foundation issue which, if I understand correctly, tends to be one of those things you can't really figure out from a basic inspection, and have to get really deep in there before you can determine how much it will cost to fix (or even if it's fixable, period).

I'm not saying that you shouldn't think about it, but before you do, read this thread. Then, read every thread by Dr. Frenchenstein since then that mentions house or legal troubles. Then consider, deeply, before you jump into this thing.

Dr. Frenchenstein

Who lit the signal that's a silhouette of me getting buttraped?

STAY AWAY. I would think something like this could be fudged to fool an inspector, and like thanatos said, the problem might be deeper down. like the foundation is actually fixed now, but whatever caused it to crack in the first place could still be going on. in 5 years time, you could be looking at a very costly repair bill!

mts

my thoughts, the original inspection found a pretty big issue with the foundation, enough to kill the sale. Since then they remodeled the house and put it back on, there is no way they didn't fix the foundation.

if its definitely a house you are interested in, get a good foundation guy (not the one who did the repairs) and have him thouroughly inspect it to make sure it wasn't a shoddy repair. i would bet the entire foundation is solid since the sellers would otherwise be stupid to waste money on the remodel since a bad foundation is a deal killer.

however you definitely don't want to get frenchensteined™.

i think with a good inspection, it is defintiely worth springing for the foundation and survey in this instance to keep you from getting sunk later on. (pun intended)

Lanchester

I bought a house a few years back that had foundation issues. The previous owners had a foundation company come out and fix the problem, and the company has a lifetime warranty so I figured that was good enough for me...and purchased.

The fine print: The foundation company has a lifetime warranty on that specific spot they did the foundation repair on (area right under the front of the garage). Since then, I've started to notice cracks forming on the complete opposite side of the house. I regret my decision of buying the house now.

Summary - If there are foundation issues, you could get them fixed (which definitely isn't cheap), and possibly even get a company that has a warranty like mine...but that doesn't mean you are all taken care of. And usually, if you have foundation issues, it is very likely that you will continue having them in other parts of the house.

Stay away.

mts

i also think it depends on what caused the foundation issue in teh first place. if its a water table thing, then it could likely effect everything, and is probably best to stay away, but if it was some localized event (tree roots or something) you could be fine.

Figgy

What others have said.

This isn't your diamond in the rough. I know during a house hunt you can fall in love with a place and want to overlook and hand wave certain issues, but don't overlook something major like a foundation.

Move on.

bowen

Don't fuck with foundation issues. Ever.

CommunistCow

I asked a friend of mine who works doing water rights geology about the proximity to the reservoir and he sent this back:

It looks like that is close enough, either to the reservoir or the river to the south to at least have the local groundwater influenced by their proximity.

If the House has a basement you can check for signs of water damage there. If not, the groundwater may likely be high in that area. You can look around for signs of sinkholes, but if the reservoir is still high, the groundwater is likely still high, so any sinking damage would be old.

You can look for cracked concrete in drive ways and in sections of exposed foundation. That could be caused by any number of things, but it would be a more obvious sign of potential problems.

I'm not aware of any piezometric surface maps that are publicly available, normally we would drill a bunch of wells and monitor those over time. If you see a bunch of well caps in the area, it may be a sign that groundwater is a concern.

Another friend mentioned that I can have our Realtor contact their Realtor and ask for the documentation about the disclosure since it should be public record.

I will look into this a bit more but I will be extremely extremely wary.

JaysonFour

Foundation issues are pretty much a sign to run, in my book. If you can't deal with the problem behind them, they'll simply keep getting worse and worse until you have the house equivalent of a lemon. You'll have to disclose the problems and any reputable inspector will tell a buyer to forget they ever saw the place.

Sir Landshark

As a structural engineer (albeit one not typically involved in light construction):

Do not purchase that house

bowen

As someone that's helped my dad repair several HUD houses, don't fuck with foundation issues.

You're better off leveling the structure and building a new house.

Dark_Side

my thoughts, the original inspection found a pretty big issue with the foundation, enough to kill the sale. Since then they remodeled the house and put it back on, there is no way they didn't fix the foundation.

Not necessarily, it's possible the owner just hired some 2 bit outfit to come do a cheapo fix, or god forbid they fixed it themselves, maybe dumped some epoxy in a crack or two and covered it up with drywall.

Which is why I'd want documentation of the fix, and I'd want copies of the engineered drawings. And then have my own soils/structural inspection done to verify if the fix was proper and is performing acceptably. And that won't run cheap, I'd guess any savings on the initial buy price would be eaten up fast, and I'd still have to disclose the foundation issue if I wanted to sell down the road.

schuss

No. Just no. The rule of houses that I've learned the hard way is: If there's a possibility that it might be bad/wrong, it is.

CommunistCow

Yeah, we decided to pass on it and it just went under contract after being on the market for 3 days. So good luck to whoever put in that offer.