Hey this question is actually for my Mother and involves a HUD house she purchased maybe around 10 years ago. My Mom doesn’t make much money so she doesn’t have money for repairs.
I have little to no knowledge about house structures and foundations, so keep that in mind. This house has no basement but outside you can clearly see large vertical cracks in the foundation, probably large enough to stick your finger inside, the walls of her house at the upper corners have seams where the ceiling and walls meet that appear to be pulling apart. There are long, jagged cracks at various parts in the house, and long horizontal cracks or seams that run along the walls, and the tile floor in the kitchen is uneven and cracked.
I will add that this is part of a townhouse and all these structures are directly connected to other townhouses in one continuous line, there are probably 15 or so other homes that run down the line and my mother’s is the second to last from one end of the line.
My Mother claims an inspection was done prior to buying the house, I know for instance a part of the roof that was damaged or leaking was repaired. I can’t imagine this is inspection was very thorough if this problem was not brought or discussed at the time of purchase and she said they didn’t even want to repair the roof problem. This was also not a new home at the time of purchase, I’ll have to ask her exactly when the house was built, but there had to be signs of a problem, I find it impossible to believe that they didn’t exist at the time she bought the home. This problem with the foundation and walls appears to be an evolving situation that has gotten progressively worse over the years.
So basically does my Mother have any legal ways to resolve this issue, does it matter that the home is also attached to multiple other homes, she DOES NOT have the kind of money to fix a problem of this magnitude, she might have a little put away, but I imagine this is an extremely expensive problem to repair.
It’s hard to see how she can make any legal claims after 10 years.
Realistically how much longer do your expect her to be living in this house? If not that many years I personally would just ignore it, other than perhaps filling up the cracks with caulking or patching mortar/cement. That is what I have done with my house with foundation cracks.
First, you might get more responses in IMHO, so I’ve reported this thread for possible relocation.
Now then. More information would be helpful. What part of the country is the house in? Are there signs of damage to other units in the same structure? Finally, is there an HOA that might be responsible for repairs?
It sounds like you aren’t sure that an inspection was performed. If she got a conventional loan I’m sure she got one, and if the foundation was needing repair I’m sure the inspector would’ve caught it (but of course, some inspectors suck / are lazy / make mistakes, so take that with a grain of salt). See if you can find a copy of the report and read over it. However, just because the problem is bad now doesn’t mean it was bad or even existed a decade ago. Indeed, in areas of the country that get lots of rain (like western Oregon, where I am) or places with seismic activity (California), foundation problems can develop fairly quickly. 10 years is a significant amount of time for structure damage to develop — you even say it’s been developing and getting significantly worse.
You’re right that this is an extremely expensive repair. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that since it’s a townhouse, the repair would be even more costly due to the structural limitations. Perhaps one of the first things to do is find out why the foundation is settling. A pro is needed to determine this.
If it were me, I would be tempted to sell now and relocate before the problem gets much worse, being honest about why I’m selling of course. The other options are to 1) live with it, doing the band-aid repairs that PastTense noted, or 2) find a way to pay for the repair.
I missed the part of the OP about it being a HUD home. I know little about HUD homes but dont they require a separate inspection from a appraiser with a specific HUD license before they go on the market? Are those reports available and if so is there anything in it about the foundation?
I’m shooting in the dark here, but it might be worth checking out.
We recently dealt with a related problem: cement blocks at the base of our home, especially at certain corners, were rotting away. They’re about a century old, and decades of rain (especially rain-soaked debris and the acids that formed therein) pooled next to them, dissolving them.
I had two different contractors come out and look. The first one planned to charge $200 for taking a look, but when he saw it, he just said to pour a bunch of quick-drying cement into the holes in the blocks and be done with it, and asked me for a $20 to buy his dinner instead of paying his full fee.
I wasn’t satisfied, so I called a second contractor, who said that the damage would worsen over time. For about $2000, he hollowed out the dissolved material, drilled holes in a bunch of adjacent blocks, buried rebar spikes in the driveway next to the house, and built a concrete “bench” about 4" high and 4" wide skirting the base of the house, as protection against further damage and as support for the damaged blocks. (He also poured a bunch of concrete into the holes, both old and new).
I don’t know if something like this would work for your mom, but it might be worth calling a contractor or two out to take a look.
I’m often confounded when people ask if there is a “legal way” to address their problems. Well, she could pay to have it repaired, or she could sell the house for a depreciated amount reflecting the settling issues. Those are “legal ways.” But I assume you are asking if there are ways to get someone else to pay HER costs…
In large part, it is her house. She is responsible for the costs of the repair, and will bear the loss of value on sale. Most home inspectors expressly disavow any liability for doing a lousy job. Compound that by adding 10 years. The only complications I could see is if there was some HUGE obvious, known problem that was not disclosed at the time of sale - along the lines of a history of landslides, or the seller having knowledge of mining underneath, ancient indian burial grounds…
The one other possibility is whether there is a homeowners association - as I would expect with connected townhomes. I assume your mom pays a monthly HOA fee for maintenance of common elements. Townhome/condo/HOA law is a special category of real estate law, with its own rules. Perhaps if there is an issue with the entire area causing damage to multiple units, the costs of repair might be allocated to all of the units, rather than your mother alone. In such case, she should bring her questions to the homeowners association. I would imagine they are required to have officers and regular meetings.
If this is a townhouse with several homes connected together structurally, I’d ask more questions before paying and/or accepting responsibility for this. Is there an HOA or someone she pays dues to? Is there a property manager or maintenance department? Does she (and/or the bank) own it outright or is there a person or business that owns all the townhouses?
If there’s were a condo, that she’d bought (as opposed to rented), I assume whoever owns the condos would be responsible for foundation repairs. Would that be the same case here?
Do you know what the foundation is constructed of? I assume it’s either poured concrete or mortared concrete blocks, but perhaps something else. Since you say there are vertical cracks it sounds like poured concrete, concrete blocks tend to separate between the blocks leaving a stair step pattern. But it isn’t always that way, they could have been heavily reinforced with rebar.
I’d think that since it’s a townhome, there’s some kind of HOA or other body that includes all the homeowners for the building that would be on the hook for repairs.