The Seller Lied On the Disclosure
Nov. 13th, 2003 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynWhen Amy and I arrived, a few minutes early, at the BBH, the termite exterminator and the house inspector were already there and at work. The inspector was up on the roof, but the exterminator came up and introduced himself. His name was Ken, and he was a handsome, friendly fellow, quite likeable and professional. My first question to him was, "How does it look for termites?"
"Not good. I've found termites all over on the property. We can only hope now that they haven't gotten into the house, or haven't done much damage."
"I guess my second question would be: should I buy a house that has termites?"
He looked to one side and didn't answer me.
We went inside. Ken went to the basement and started poking around at the walls and ceiling, looking for rot. He also had a nifty device that detected moisture inside the walls. Since termites are mostly water, when this device gets a readout along a "trail", it means that there're almost certainly termites in the walls.
He checked the whole house, and only found termites inside one wall, by the front porch. The front porch is enclosed concrete; Ken said there was probably waste wood from the construction encased in it, and the termites would come straight up from there. That's why the sellers never saw the trails going into the house.
But the sellers knew there were termites on the property. They'd seen them in the rotting wood in the yard, and the husband knew about them in one wall of the shed. "We didn't think they'd gotten into the house," the wife said.
I can't believe that they were admitting this stuff. There's a specific question on the seller's disclosure: "Are there, to your knowledge, termites on the property?" and it's clearly checked "No." Yet here the two of them are, wandering around and blithely admitting that they were fully aware that they had termites all over the grounds.
I had termites down on my list of deal-breakers. But, after speaking to Ken, I've decided it's not. Ken's service uses Termidor, and which comes with a lifetime warranty. He does free annual inspections, too, to make sure they don't come back. And the termites hadn't done any real damage to the house. His advice: "Make sure the sellers use Termidor, but I wouldn't worry about it, or let it stop you from buying. It'll be fine."
The termites had rotted away at the only wooden wall of the shed, and the front beam of the garage, the one over the garage door. But they hadn't done any other real damage. And, as Ken pointed out "It's an open shed already. Once the place has been treated, the termites won't do any more damage, and it's not like the wall is about to fall over."
It's the seller's responsibility to take care of the termites, which, sadly, means they get to pick what company to use. Ken made a point of this, even when talking to the sellers directly: "You can use anyone you want. Go ahead, call around." I found his forthright manner rather charming. He can't have been as young as he looked; he said he's been doing this 14 years. I told the sellers that -- if I was buying the place - they should use Termidor, and preferably, Ken. Heck, I'd pay the cost difference myself. When Amy had her house treated for termites, it cost her $575, and that was only for a 5 year warranty, and she has to pay $50 a year for inspections. Ken's estimate was only $605.
The sellers are not negotiating on repairs. Period. Their story is that they'd file for bankruptcy, but they own too many properties to make it work. They said BBH went on the market at 100k and they've dropped it to 80k because they absolutely have to sell it, even at a loss. The wife looked profoundly relieved when Amy suggested that the termite treatment could probably be paid for at closing, rather than upfront.
The house inspector was Charles; I spoke the most with him after the sellers had left. (They were only there because we needed someone to let us into the garage.)
Here's the laundry list of problems with the house:
Notwithstanding the long list of woes, it's not all bad. Charles pointed out that the place is structurally sound, and better built than most modern houses, with higher quality materials and better techniques. The septic tank is scarily easy to get to. There are two concrete blocks covering up holes that lead into it. You can pick them up -- we did -- and see the water of the tank. No odor from it. And hopefully the easy access means I don't need to pay someone to excavate the top when I get it inspected. Which -- cross your fingers -- I can arrange for on Saturday. Maybe. I hope. Or maybe the sellers will reject my terms and I won't need to get the septic tank inspected at all.
Amy is going to ask the sellers to get the roof fixed (if they got any kind of warranty on it, it should still be covered, so this ought to be free), to do what they can about the outlets, and to replace the termite-rotted board from the garage. (They've done a lot of this sort of work, so it shouldn't be much expense for them). Oh, and the garage has a garage door opener. Cool. Bonus.
Up until I double-checked the disclosure sheet and verified, yes, the sellers had flat-out lied about the termites, I was feelling sorry for the. BBH is a nice house, despite the various problems. Even if I use my worst-case estimates for everything, I'm still looking at under 5k for it all. (OK, maybe a bit more than 5k if I replace the A/C and re-do the insulation right off). But still ... this was our favorite house. Lut and I liked it better than houses that cost $95k. Our next favorites were an $84,900 house with a 20 year-old roof, and one for $86,900 with an only partly finished basement.
I don't have a whole lot of reason to be confident that either a) nothing will be wrong with those places or b) that the seller will be a whole lot more eager to fix them before closing than the seller on BBH is.
And I'm just not sure I'm ready to go through all of this again on another house.
If the sellers come back to say they can't get the nails on the roof fixed, deal's off. Otherwise, I'll arrange for the septic tank inspection, and then turn it over to my poor beleaguered lender to try to get the appraisal and title work done in time for a November 25 closing. Hmm. I better push my real estate agent to get them to give me an answer ASAP -- I know it's, if anything, even more important to them that we close on the 25th than it is to me. But it'll be hard enough to do that if I get the ball rolling tomorrow, and I don't want to commit to paying for anything else until I know the sellers will at least do that much. Pity the sellers burned up all their credibility by lying on the disclosure; otherwise, I might be willing to trust them when they say that the septic tank's OK.
Well, we'll see.
"Not good. I've found termites all over on the property. We can only hope now that they haven't gotten into the house, or haven't done much damage."
"I guess my second question would be: should I buy a house that has termites?"
He looked to one side and didn't answer me.
We went inside. Ken went to the basement and started poking around at the walls and ceiling, looking for rot. He also had a nifty device that detected moisture inside the walls. Since termites are mostly water, when this device gets a readout along a "trail", it means that there're almost certainly termites in the walls.
He checked the whole house, and only found termites inside one wall, by the front porch. The front porch is enclosed concrete; Ken said there was probably waste wood from the construction encased in it, and the termites would come straight up from there. That's why the sellers never saw the trails going into the house.
But the sellers knew there were termites on the property. They'd seen them in the rotting wood in the yard, and the husband knew about them in one wall of the shed. "We didn't think they'd gotten into the house," the wife said.
I can't believe that they were admitting this stuff. There's a specific question on the seller's disclosure: "Are there, to your knowledge, termites on the property?" and it's clearly checked "No." Yet here the two of them are, wandering around and blithely admitting that they were fully aware that they had termites all over the grounds.
I had termites down on my list of deal-breakers. But, after speaking to Ken, I've decided it's not. Ken's service uses Termidor, and which comes with a lifetime warranty. He does free annual inspections, too, to make sure they don't come back. And the termites hadn't done any real damage to the house. His advice: "Make sure the sellers use Termidor, but I wouldn't worry about it, or let it stop you from buying. It'll be fine."
The termites had rotted away at the only wooden wall of the shed, and the front beam of the garage, the one over the garage door. But they hadn't done any other real damage. And, as Ken pointed out "It's an open shed already. Once the place has been treated, the termites won't do any more damage, and it's not like the wall is about to fall over."
It's the seller's responsibility to take care of the termites, which, sadly, means they get to pick what company to use. Ken made a point of this, even when talking to the sellers directly: "You can use anyone you want. Go ahead, call around." I found his forthright manner rather charming. He can't have been as young as he looked; he said he's been doing this 14 years. I told the sellers that -- if I was buying the place - they should use Termidor, and preferably, Ken. Heck, I'd pay the cost difference myself. When Amy had her house treated for termites, it cost her $575, and that was only for a 5 year warranty, and she has to pay $50 a year for inspections. Ken's estimate was only $605.
The sellers are not negotiating on repairs. Period. Their story is that they'd file for bankruptcy, but they own too many properties to make it work. They said BBH went on the market at 100k and they've dropped it to 80k because they absolutely have to sell it, even at a loss. The wife looked profoundly relieved when Amy suggested that the termite treatment could probably be paid for at closing, rather than upfront.
The house inspector was Charles; I spoke the most with him after the sellers had left. (They were only there because we needed someone to let us into the garage.)
Here's the laundry list of problems with the house:
- Water heater: "Works, but it's leaking and needs to be replaced immediately". Cost: $300-$400
- Furnace: "Works, but it's rusting and well past he usual 15 year lifetime. Recommend replacing soon, if not immediately." Cost: $1500-$2000
- A/C: "Works, but it's old." Cost: Not sure. I may wait until I have trouble with this before replacing it.
- Electrical outlets: The house has lots of three-pronged outlet plates. Only two of these are properly grounded. The cost of fixing this isn't clear to me. Charles didn't think it'd be a whole lot. I don't really have to do every room immediately, on this one, but this is definitely something that I want to address soon, and professionally. The sellers did a lot of the work fixing up this place themselves, and I've asked them to fix the socket by the electrical panel, the one for the washer-dryer. Husband said he could do that one, but not the rest. My wild guess on cost: $500-$1000
- Basement flooding: Seller said they had one bad flood in the basement when there was a heavy rain. They've since installed a sump pump and haven't had trouble after that, according to them. However, the pump was not turning itself on when the inspector arrived, however, and it was completely full. The underside of the carpet over it was wet. He jogged it and it activated. We repeated this part with me watching; the water level had already started to rise again. However, he said the rest of it looked good -- it was draining downhill and sufficiently far from the house. Charles did not seem too worried about this part. Cost for a new sump pump is cheap: $80.
- Roof: It's less than six months old. Charles thought it was in good shape except for one potentially very bad problem: nails all over it had not been hammered down completely. "It's like they hired a good roofer who knew what he was doing, but had brought a small hammer that day or something". This needs to be fixed before snow or frost gets on the roof, as the shingles are warping over the raised nail heads, and will break if they get cold and brittle. Cost: This is a deal-breaker -- either the sellers get this fixed with whomever put the roof in, or I won't buy.
- Insulation: In the attic, it's blown, white, 5". Charles said "It's what you get with these older houses. You could buy rolls and lay them down, or hire someone to blow in new insulation. But it's not a 'must fix' issue." Cost: no idea.
- Spiders: Charles: "I don't know if this worries you or not, but I've seen three spiders in this place already. Wors, the seller told me that while they were working on this place, one of their helpers got bitten by a spider and had to be taken to the hospital, with red lines standing out on his arm. I'd suggest bombing the place before you move in." Cost: not sure, probably not a whole lot.
- Warping: The floor is uneven on the first floor because of the joists shrinking, Charles thought. Ken had found some moisture in one of the walls that wasn't termites (it didn't go all the way to the floor), and Charles guessed that this was from leakage before the roof was replaced. Charles wasn't concerned that there were any deeper problems at work here. "It's an older house. The wood dries out and shrinks unevenly. If this was a 10-year old house, we'd be walking out now, and it wouldn't be a slow walk. But this is a 60 year-old house. It's not likely to change any from here." Cost: Doesn't seem like I need to address this.
Notwithstanding the long list of woes, it's not all bad. Charles pointed out that the place is structurally sound, and better built than most modern houses, with higher quality materials and better techniques. The septic tank is scarily easy to get to. There are two concrete blocks covering up holes that lead into it. You can pick them up -- we did -- and see the water of the tank. No odor from it. And hopefully the easy access means I don't need to pay someone to excavate the top when I get it inspected. Which -- cross your fingers -- I can arrange for on Saturday. Maybe. I hope. Or maybe the sellers will reject my terms and I won't need to get the septic tank inspected at all.
Amy is going to ask the sellers to get the roof fixed (if they got any kind of warranty on it, it should still be covered, so this ought to be free), to do what they can about the outlets, and to replace the termite-rotted board from the garage. (They've done a lot of this sort of work, so it shouldn't be much expense for them). Oh, and the garage has a garage door opener. Cool. Bonus.
Up until I double-checked the disclosure sheet and verified, yes, the sellers had flat-out lied about the termites, I was feelling sorry for the. BBH is a nice house, despite the various problems. Even if I use my worst-case estimates for everything, I'm still looking at under 5k for it all. (OK, maybe a bit more than 5k if I replace the A/C and re-do the insulation right off). But still ... this was our favorite house. Lut and I liked it better than houses that cost $95k. Our next favorites were an $84,900 house with a 20 year-old roof, and one for $86,900 with an only partly finished basement.
I don't have a whole lot of reason to be confident that either a) nothing will be wrong with those places or b) that the seller will be a whole lot more eager to fix them before closing than the seller on BBH is.
And I'm just not sure I'm ready to go through all of this again on another house.
If the sellers come back to say they can't get the nails on the roof fixed, deal's off. Otherwise, I'll arrange for the septic tank inspection, and then turn it over to my poor beleaguered lender to try to get the appraisal and title work done in time for a November 25 closing. Hmm. I better push my real estate agent to get them to give me an answer ASAP -- I know it's, if anything, even more important to them that we close on the 25th than it is to me. But it'll be hard enough to do that if I get the ball rolling tomorrow, and I don't want to commit to paying for anything else until I know the sellers will at least do that much. Pity the sellers burned up all their credibility by lying on the disclosure; otherwise, I might be willing to trust them when they say that the septic tank's OK.
Well, we'll see.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-13 06:55 pm (UTC)I wonder what kind of spiders they are. If they're just common house spiders, three isn't so bad... I see spiders around here all the time. They try pretty hard to stay out of the way, though being mostly blind, they sometimes end up in stupid places.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 12:22 am (UTC)Black widows are easy to ID (it has a red hourglass on black). Brown recluses are much easier to to confuse with less-dangerous spiders.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 02:28 am (UTC)Anyway, I was wondering what kind of spiders they were, not suggesting our friend completely disregard them. I'm aware of recluse and widows... we have a lot of the latter in the region. The former tend to live in the central states more towards the eastern side. There are some pockets of browns and other types of recluses in southeastern California and lower Texas. I can't quite recall where Rowyn's setting up shop.
Widows like niches, and recluse like clutter they can hide in, and they both go where the food is. Maybe Rowyn will decide to spend the money and time fumigating the place after they've cleaned it up and gotten some idea of whether there's actually an infestation to deal with.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 03:49 am (UTC)Carpet's new, paint's new, windows were all cleaned, basement is finished, the kitchen is totally redone (and very nice, and the inspector said there are no problems with it), etc. The place is newly remodeled, and while the sellers are not trustworthy, the inspector says that, for the most part, they did a good job. I can blame them for the roof and the termites (both of which are deal-breakers if they won't fix) and the wiring (they probably installed those three-pronged outlets that aren't grounded). But the rest of it -- well, I'm not exactly going to blame them for not replacing working appliances.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 07:17 am (UTC)Since both the appearance and bite symptoms are very similar, it's hardly surprising that the Hobo doesn't rate mention in a late 1970's Boy Scout manual.
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Date: 2003-11-14 12:56 pm (UTC)At any rate, see the URL posted in a comment further below for more up-to-date information concerning the brown recluse and recluse family.
I should also note that a possible allergy to bites of common spiders can also cause an immeadiate trip to the ER, likely a more immeadiate alarm than an average recluse bite. Most people don't notice a recluse bite for hours before it starts to hurt significantly, unless they happen to be one of the few that'll have a severe reaction to the venom. It's generally after at least two hours that the sting intensifies, and the bite site eventually blisters. Not sure how long the worker remained after he got bitten, and I'm not sure what would cause red lines on his arm. (Except maybe an allergic reaction, I dunno.)
Widows use a neurotoxin, so their bites don't cause strange skin conditions beyond the immeadiate area. (A pale spot around the bite surrounded by a red ring.) The guy would get bad cramps after a while, and start sweating, at the least. So that seems unlikely.
Now, if it's a radioactive spider, the worker might start shooting webs from his wrists, and complain of his senses tingling. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 01:46 pm (UTC)The red streaks suggest that the bite got into the lymphatic system. By itself, that wouldn't distinguish between virulent spider and infection -- but infections usually have a longer prodromal period. But there are some very fast staph variants out there.
The described symptoms don't obviously match either anaphalytic shock, or hives affecting the airway. Which doesn't exclude them.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 04:19 am (UTC)Exactly. And we have had brown recluses at the bank where I work, just a mile away. So I know they're in the area. :/
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Date: 2003-11-14 12:31 pm (UTC)See the following:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7468.html
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Date: 2003-11-14 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-13 08:27 pm (UTC)I'd look around a little bit more. That the sellers were deceptive at the outset and the house already has more than its fair share of faults is worrisome. No, you won't find a perfect place. But for 80K it had danged well better than living in a tent. And what other faults does the house have that the poor, nice couple conveniently "forget" to disclose? A badly installed roof is not a new roof - the roof you'll have to purchase to REPLACE it will be a new roof. That they hired the lowest bidder and he didn't install the roof right is not your problem... unless you buy the house.
Seriously, it sounds like the only major system not ruined in the house is the plumbing, and I'm sure there will be a surprise in that later as well. A pricier home that won't cost you another 40K to repair is a better deal.
I dunno
Date: 2003-11-13 10:09 pm (UTC)Bad but not catastrophic
Date: 2003-11-14 12:20 am (UTC)On the other hand, you are paying for a Cadillac level inspection and none of the problems you've discovered sounds like it makes the BBH a bad deal based on your past statements. I suspect that even includes the roof (assuming that the worst case is that you just need to hire another roofer to finish pounding in the nails, which is what is sounded like your inspector said).
So, I'm going to ignore the septic tank and risk an annoying claim to know how you'll decide something that you're still considering and wish you good luck with your new home.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 06:39 am (UTC)Goddamn, when I got my house, one of the things was $200 back for windowblind repair. No detail is too small, and everything counts in large ammounts. They're saying they have already dropped - I submit they entered too high in the first place. While "it might bankrupt them" to go lower, hey "the house doesn't have termites" and you're taking food from their children in the desert too.
Make sure you're happy. Don't keep saying "Well, it's okay, it's okay, I can live with this, I can live with that". Don't back down on your dealbreakers. They think they've got you, and it's just a matter of reeling you in. If you walk away, they just might start taking you seriously and drop the price a couple thousand to get you back - especially if they're as desperate as they say.
You've spent a little money on the place so far, There is no sense throwing good money after bad and spending a lot more on a decision you might be unhappy with in a year, on something else you weren't told about, that was done hobbyclass, and your inspector didn't find. I'd be hinging it on whether they picked up Ken's termite service or not, with the roof being fixed, the sump serviced, and something to cover the basement carpet replacement being a given, plus the other repairs. You avoid bad deals by remembering other things will come along.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 07:07 am (UTC)They did enter the market too high. The place is not worth 100k.
I'm walking away if they don't use Ken's service or won't get the roof fixed. That's a given. But for the rest ... I'll handle it. Frankly, I don't want a brand-new el-cheapo furnace that's not fuel-efficient, anyway. At least if I'm replacing this stuff, I can know that it'll be done right.
But I'll walk away if I have to. I'm on the edge of what I'm willing to put up with. If there's anything wrong with the septic tank, I'm gone.
I feel sorry for my agent, though. I don't think I'm willing to go through all of this again, at least not any time soon. All of this arranging and calling and offers and waiting and waiting and hurry up and wait some more .... Lord, it's killing me
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 07:27 am (UTC)A few years back, we were trying to sell a house (planning a major move south). By Act of God, it sold for our asking price in about a month.
Of course, eschewing greed didn't hurt ;)
On the advice of our realtor, we set the price by observing what the highest price any house in our neighborhood had sold for, then deducting known major costs up front.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 10:11 am (UTC)There are a lot of nice things about my house, but I should have looked more, and I should have asked more. The house looked great when I went into it, but every now and then, I discover yet another "surprise" about the house. There were a lot of things that were bolted into drywall, rather than studs, all over the house. Things are cracking and falling apart. There are signs of a whole lot of rushed fix-up jobs that I suspect were done in the period before selling the house for the express purpose of running up the sale value, by making it look nicer than it really is. I still haven't quite gotten over how I nearly lost my stained glass lamp because the ceiling support hook was just *screwed into the drywall*. (I'm glad I gave it a testing yank - which ripped it clean out, even though a previous fixture had been hanging from it before - before hanging anything else up there.)
Ahem. I digress. I'm impressed that you're spending this much money on checking on the house. I'm such a short-sighted cheapskate that I doubt I would do the same. But it's not worth it, if you're going to spend all this money "to be sure" and YET you still might go into it anyway, with no concessions from the sellers. I don't want you to get a bum deal! I DO hope that you get a very nice house, but I also don't want you to end up in a situation where you only begrudgingly get an expensive house "you can live with" ... and then you find out, a few months later, of a much better deal elsewhere, if only you'd looked a little more.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 09:33 am (UTC)Okay, so that's not my real reason for posting a comment (though I did find the story in the newspaper of the guy buying his 225 sqft townhouse for $250k...). The real reason is that you have no other contact information listed, but you seem really familiar to me for some reason. Do I know you? Do you know me? Am I just psychotic? :)
Wuff.
--A
no subject
Date: 2003-11-15 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-14 09:47 am (UTC)However, when I read the part about the flooding in the basement, I winced and sucked in a breath. This doesn't sound good, for two reasons:
1) Possible mold growth, due to things in the basement staying wet for however long it took for the sellers to pump and dry whatever was affected. I admit that I'm more sensitive on this issue than most, because I'm violently allergic to molds. Still, it's not a healthy thing for anyone to be around.
2) Possible structural damage to the house over time. The sellers' vague "we haven't had any trouble since we installed the sump pump" sounds suspiciously like "the basement has collected water more than once but, thanks to the installation of the pump, we drained it before it became a big problem" to me. (YMMV on this one, but they also lied about no termites on the property...) If this is true, then the basement will continue to collect some amount of water after every heavy rain. Over time, this will cause structural damage to the house's foundation, even if the basement is built of concrete. (You can thank Grym for these factoids; I ran your "laundry list" by her for her input, since she and Kamots just bought a house themselves.)
I know this is just another detail to add to the bundle of things you have to think about, but I felt it was worth mentioning. :-/
no subject
Date: 2003-11-15 05:12 am (UTC)Mold, on the other hand ... I don't know. This inspection company didn't offer a mold test. On the other hand, I know Lut is pretty sensitive to odors and dust, and he didn't notice anything.
I had my father look at the inspection report, and he said that if the sump pump is doing its job, it should be OK. (Daddy was impressed by how thorough the inspection report was. He said I did good with my inspection company. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-15 05:00 pm (UTC)I missed this entry before; lots of details here. At least you can control the replacement timing on most of the items mentioned; if they had to be replaced without choice immediately, then they would have been.
Good luck!
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2003-11-16 10:22 am (UTC)