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New House Blues
Dr. Frenchenstein
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Sorry, this is a long one...
So i bought a house almost a year ago. Home inspector came through found some things wrong, seller fixed them, everything seemed right with the world. fast forward until november i've got a leak on the main floor during a pretty nasty rainstorm. Nothing major, just a slow drip. my neighbors house is a bit of a...dump for lack of a better word. I figured it might be coming from their house, becuase it's right by where their second floor ends. I look, and don't really see anything obvious, probably doesn't happen again for a while. Come january, leak happens again and i start to see some bubbling of the paint in my room upstairs (totally different location). Ok, now i'm worried. I get up on my roof to look around, and apparently the seller neglected to properly do the flashing where the roof meets the stucco outer wall. So water has just been pouring down there. I buy some roof sealant, and squirt away in there. things seem to be ok. i also notice a weird tube coming from my kitchen ceiling. I've never seen termite activity, but a friend told me thats what it was. So NOW i'm worried. I schedule Orkin to come in, get a contractor to cut some holes in the drywall and yup, termite mudtubes. Orkin finds a colony in my crawlspace, treats everything on the bottom two floors. Contractor checks my roof and what i did, didn't really do much. Also, the bubbling in my room has gotten way worse. Roof is now fixed (~$500), and contractor is pulling down the drywall in my room to fix. Insulation is SATURATED and pretty much the whole ceiling needs to come down. tremendous termite and ant damage in my wall, and essentially he needs to rip up my ENTIRE room, and rebuild. I checked with my insurance company, and they seem to think it's a preexisting condition (which...i guess it is, at least the leak. i dunno about the termites. i haven't asked them since the damage revelation) so they are unlikely to cover it. My question here is, do i have any recourse with the seller? basically, he rehabbed the house, and half-assed the roof which led to a leak. Termites are drawn to wet wood, and there is no proof the termites were there prior. (unless someone can analyze the damage and determine that.) anybody have to deal with this in the past? any lawyers have advice? I'm worried this is going to cost a fortune and i'm going to be left with my pants down and sore asshole.
TL;DR - Bought a house a year ago, faulty construction that wasn't caught by the inspector led to a pretty serious leak that didn't become prevalent for quite a while. Now house has termite problem and extensive water/termite/ant damage. what's a girl to do?
So i bought a house almost a year ago. Home inspector came through found some things wrong, seller fixed them, everything seemed right with the world. fast forward until november i've got a leak on the main floor during a pretty nasty rainstorm. Nothing major, just a slow drip. my neighbors house is a bit of a...dump for lack of a better word. I figured it might be coming from their house, becuase it's right by where their second floor ends. I look, and don't really see anything obvious, probably doesn't happen again for a while. Come january, leak happens again and i start to see some bubbling of the paint in my room upstairs (totally different location). Ok, now i'm worried. I get up on my roof to look around, and apparently the seller neglected to properly do the flashing where the roof meets the stucco outer wall. So water has just been pouring down there. I buy some roof sealant, and squirt away in there. things seem to be ok. i also notice a weird tube coming from my kitchen ceiling. I've never seen termite activity, but a friend told me thats what it was. So NOW i'm worried. I schedule Orkin to come in, get a contractor to cut some holes in the drywall and yup, termite mudtubes. Orkin finds a colony in my crawlspace, treats everything on the bottom two floors. Contractor checks my roof and what i did, didn't really do much. Also, the bubbling in my room has gotten way worse. Roof is now fixed (~$500), and contractor is pulling down the drywall in my room to fix. Insulation is SATURATED and pretty much the whole ceiling needs to come down. tremendous termite and ant damage in my wall, and essentially he needs to rip up my ENTIRE room, and rebuild. I checked with my insurance company, and they seem to think it's a preexisting condition (which...i guess it is, at least the leak. i dunno about the termites. i haven't asked them since the damage revelation) so they are unlikely to cover it. My question here is, do i have any recourse with the seller? basically, he rehabbed the house, and half-assed the roof which led to a leak. Termites are drawn to wet wood, and there is no proof the termites were there prior. (unless someone can analyze the damage and determine that.) anybody have to deal with this in the past? any lawyers have advice? I'm worried this is going to cost a fortune and i'm going to be left with my pants down and sore asshole.
TL;DR - Bought a house a year ago, faulty construction that wasn't caught by the inspector led to a pretty serious leak that didn't become prevalent for quite a while. Now house has termite problem and extensive water/termite/ant damage. what's a girl to do?
Dr. Frenchenstein on
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You may have a claim against the inspector if you can prove negligence - ie that this was something he or she should have caught.
How old is your home? Most states have a 10 yr. limit on suing the builder for home defects. Which something like improper flashing would most certainly fall under.
Yeah, looking for a lawyer now. the house is less than 2-3 years (i'm not sure when exactly the roof was done. The house wasn't 100% done when i put in the contract, but it was for the most part.) someone is definitely at fault, whether it's me for not catching it, or them for doing a shit job, i dunno. I doubt i can get the inspector, but this was pretty glaring. I might look at his contract when i get home, there's probably a waiver in there that gets him out of liability. I know there is for anything inside the walls, but this was on the outside, and now that i know what to look for, it was pretty glaring. we'll see i guess. I'm asking my realtor if she knows a real estate lawyer, other than the yellow pages, i have no idea where to get a reputable one.
It's pretty common in tract housing, and surprisingly an even bigger problem in expensive custom homes. The developer is trying to make as much profit as possible, so they cut corners everywhere they can, and so do each of the disciplines they employ to make plans and so on. Even with a solid set of plans though, there's no guarantee the builder/contractors are going to be on the level. Some have been known to take a job and then as soon as it's over go out of business and re open with a new name. In essence the goal is get people into the houses and hope no problems show up while the homes are still relatively new. Which has popped up a cottage industry for construction defect lawyers. Technically the city plan checkers and inspectors are supposed to catch all this, but they are so overworked that a lot of stuff falls through the cracks.
A quick google search brings up more than a few const. defect lawyers in Maryland, I would definitely give one a call to see what kind of options you have.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Don't worry about it, you're not responsible for unknown defects, and if you honestly forget to disclose something and their first step is to sue you they are not going to be very popular with any judge.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
sent an email to a lawyer with the story, but haven't heard anything back yet. I think i'm going to set up an appointment with an actual real estate lawyer my agent turned me to.
Back in February I had to take an appraisal training class and in it there was some side discussion regarding different styles of construction for homes. I noticed you mentioned yours was stucco. Now, in the late 90's early 00's there were alot of homes going up with "tight" construction designs. Designs that would make it so air flow wouldn't be allowed to make it between the stucco and the boards they put up that is covered by the stucco. The problem was, many contractors used a special new type of board or something that was very good for insulating but was found to cause moisture build-up when used with Stucco. With no air venting through this, there would eventually be massive rot and mold damage.
Now, your situation sounds like there was a leak from them not flashing up to the roof properly so I don't know if that applies at all, but if you are finding rot in other areas that you think you shouldn't be, the above might be the reason.
I don't know if that helps at all, but it is something that you might want to check into if possible because if your house was constructed in a similar fashion, it would seem to me that it might be possible that moisture has maybe spread to other parts of the home and it's just not showing up yet.
If he represented to you that he repaired everything while only repairing the visible parts, then it sounds like you have a case of fraud on your hands.
The the seller saying that he would fix a defect and not doing an adequate job (or the person he paid to fix it not doing an adequate job) and the seller committing fraud are WORLDS apart. Besides that, the standard for proving fraud is not in your favor. Don't even mention the F word.
If everything goes as planned, i'd be getting about $6k back, 2k of which i've already paid out of pocket. so in total it seems ok, i just want to make sure i'm not getting bent over on fees.
Have you tried just talking to the seller first?
Again, in the UK, you only have a fortnight after you move in to raise any issues with faults you discover with the property that you would like the seller to stump for repairs on.
I'm not sure if the situation would be different if you were buying a new-build off a construction company or the faults relate specifically to renovations that might be covered under a separate warranty by the contractors who did the work but generally if it's stuff like dodgy central heating or rising damp and you don't call it either before purchase or two weeks after purchase then it's your problem.
Edit: I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but if you can prove the previous owner intentionally kept known problems with the house secret from you then I'd bet you have some recourse.
the seller hasn't been returning calls (there were a few cosmetic things he was supposed to get taken care of, and never did) however that was a long time ago and we were contacting him through his agent. i don't think he'll respond to me.
thats why it pays to make sure you have a reputable home inspector. or at least be there to ask questions
we are bying a house and the inspection is tomorrow. a little nervous since our agent is going for us since we are on teh other side of the country, but he is supposedly a good inspector with loads of contractor experience