Househunting - urk! (kind of pathetic)

The BBQ Pit
61

bump

For starters, has anyone heard from DanielWithrow and/or burundi? How did everything go? Are they OK? If you are either of those people, and you are reading this, I am curious to hear if you actually closed on Monday or not.

Our update as of this morning: Offer on the “new” house accepted. Under asking price. Very cool. Inspection is next week. Hopefully all will go well. Closing is scheduled for 12/5, provided everything goes OK. Thanks for everyone’s sympathy. Will keep you posted so you can plan to attend the housewarming sometime in the spring.

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Hi, guys! We’re here, and we closed on the house, and we’re extraordinarily pissed at the sellers and their agent.

As near as we can tell, the listing agent deliberately delayed putting agreements in writing or in responding to our negotiations as long as he could. The sellers didn’t show up for closing on time, and they were cleaning the house when they should have been there signing papers.

In the end, they only had $548 profit from selling the house (they were mortgaged out the yinyang), and they gave all that to us in lieu of getting the repairs done on the house. Our lawyer told us that our only plausible alternative to accepting this deal was to walk away from the whole thing; given the amount of work we’d put into all of it (arranging the loan, getting movers, packing, giving notice on our current house, setting up utilities, etc.), walking away from the deal wasn’t feasible. We’re just hoping that the $548 is enough to get the house’s CO done.

The repairs were supposed to have been done yesterday, so that the CO reinspection could happen today at 2 pm. The repair guys came out and looked at it; apparently, the listing agent had given them false information about what exactly needed doing, so they had to reschedule for this morning. As i type, they’re out there working on repairs.

The sellers are a couple of miserable slack-ass fucks, and their listing agent is an unethical bastard who played us. Unfortunately, I feel like our own agent wasn’t pushy enough: I really wish she’d forced their agent to meet negotiation deadlines, so that we could’ve had a reasonable notice that we might’ve wanted to walk away. As it was, our agent allowed things to drag out until we really didn’t have any leverage in negotiations.

It was our fault too, of course – we could’ve insisted that she put her foot down – but it was our first time buying a house, and that’s why we’d gotten an agent in the first place.

Oh well. It could be a lot worse. We did get everything moved, and we’re in the process of cleaning the despicably filthy new house even as we clean our old house up. Once this insanely stressful week is done, I’m sure we’ll both be a lot happier. The house itself is pretty cool – it’s just the process sucked bigtime, and the sellers and their agent are loathsomely unethical shits.

Daniel

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Well … glad everything went more or less OK (in the sense that you didn’t have to shoot anybody). I hope you can get your inspections done in time. “Loathesomely unethical shits” - sounds familiar. Good luck with everything! Hopefully things will go smoothly for us this time around.

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Daniel - you sure that tenant moved out?
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/2586627/detail.html
:smiley:

Sorry your close was a pain. Just realize that whatever extra it costs will be negligible as a percentage of the home price and financed over 30 years.

We had a similar situation. The sellers were divorced and the hubby was staying in the home. The evening before close, we did our final walk through to find hubby had moved out, but took only his stuff and left tons of junk ostensibly for the wife to deal with. He also kinda trashed the joint - a couple of broken windows, stuff like a box of crayons strewn across a room and walked into the carpet, etc.

We got the wife’s agent to get some guy to show up with a pickup and clear out whatever he could, and we got a minimal payment for the windows and carpet cleaning and such. Nowhere near enough to cover it, but at that point we preferred having the deal go through over walking away over a grand or so.

It was a pain having to do so much major cleaning and stuff before moving anything in. But 8 years later we’re glad we did what we needed to do to make the deal happen.

The unpleasant feelings you have now will quickly fade as you enjoy your new home.

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Gee, thanks, Dinsdale, for giving me something else to worry about! :smiley:

More fun:

The original contract had said the sellers would get it before closing, but they didn’t do that, and on Monday, on our lawyer’s advice, we raced by the office and signed a form that basically said they’d put $548 toward repairs for the C.O., and if there was anything left over we’d get it, and if it cost more than $548, we’d pay the extra.

God, how I wish we hadn’t signed that rider. Sonofabitch how I wish we hadn’t signed it.

The original inspection for the CO identified several problems, including:

  • The nonfunctional fireplace needed to be sealed off;
  • Smoke alarms needed to be added;
  • An outlet in the kitchen needed to be grounded; and
  • The carport had rotten wood that needed to be replaced.

Fine, the estimate for fixing these (and the other small) problems was $300. The listing agent hired someone to fix them; they were working on the house this morning.

I just got back from the reinspection for the Certificate of Occupancy.

  • They sealed the fireplace off with a sheet of plywood(!) instead of the mandated fireproof sealant.
  • They placed the smoke alarms in the wrong locations; while the inspectors finished their job, I was frantically relocating the smoke alarms.
  • They didn’t do anything with the outlet in the kitchen, and now the listing agent (who was at the reinspection) is saying that fixing it might be a $400 job by itself.

In addition:

  • They discovered that the fuse box in the kitchen is too close to a cabinet, meaning we’ve got to remove the damn cabinet, which will make the kitchen look ridiculous (there’s a cabinet on either side of the stove hood; one of these cabinets will have to go).
  • They decided that the carport’s structural damage meant the house can’t get a CO, meaning we’ll have to spend probably $700 or so to have it torn down.

Holy shit, I’m pissed. Why did I sign that rider? More importantly, why did our lawyer draw up something so ridiculous? He told us we either had to sign it by 5 pm on Monday (he drew it up around 2 pm) or walk away from the deal; each of us raced by his office to sign it, probably spent 2 minutes reading it and didn’t really process it until it was too late. Had we not signed it, the sellers would be financially responsible for all these things; as it is, we’re screwed.

:frowning:

Daniel

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Wow, Daniel, that’s … wow. :eek: Dunno what else to say.

Couple of questions: Did the same inspector look at the house both times? If yes, why didn’t they pick up on these things before, and is there any way you can hold the original inspector responsible for anything? If no, is there any way you can get a conditional waiver or extension, since the original inspector didn’t find these “new” problems?

Generally, or at least IME, when the inspectors come back, they are checking the stuff that was reported in the first place - say, that the roof has been repaired and that the smoke detectors have been installed. They don’t usually inspect all over again - because in that case, they could find stuff wrong with the house ad infinitum, and you could theoretically never be able to live there!

Also, FWIW, I would NOT under ANY circumstances take the listing agent’s word on what any repairs might cost (e.g., grounding that outlet in the kitchen). I recommend calling a general contractor for an estimate, if possible. But the only reason I can think of for grounding an outlet to cost $400 is if the electrical system is old and derelict, and in that case you have bigger problems than an ungrounded outlet in the kitchen.

And this is probably a dumb question, but how is there such a thing as a “wrong place” to put a smoke detector? Usually they are required on each floor, but I have never heard of them needing to be a particular location. Have you seen the occupancy code for your boro? It sounds like there is a great deal of “latitude” in the way the inspectors are interpreting the code, since two inspectors found so many different things.

Gack … now I am hoping that this stuff doesn’t happen to us. Oh, I am so glad we are getting that home inspection!