Puchased home w/ flooding not disclosed, sellers ex wife spills all the dirty details

[Pebbles123]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah

*Sorry for the long post, I am not crying anymore though!*

We purchased the house 6 months ago. In the sellers disclosure the seller stated that "5 years ago during some excessive snow pack and rain, we had some runoff issues in the crawl space."

This home was built in 2002, and the seller explained that this was a ONE TIME problem the first spring after the home was built, before the ground had taken root.

2 months ago during a heavy rain we had a little water come in the crawl space. I started asking around and stumbled across the sellers ex wife. She told us about her belongings being damaged 5 years ago, that he was suppose to have had someone in to fix the problem and guaranteed the work, but she stated it is something that continues to happen every spring during the snow melt and rain. She also named another area in the house where we would have problems in the spring.

Weekend before last we had heavy rains. We have had severe flooding in the crawl space and also flooding in the area of the living room that the seller’s ex-wife said it would flood in the spring during runoff, in addition to 4 other places around the perimeter of the home. Right after we closed on the house, and after the seller moved his furniture out, I noticed that there were stains on the carpet where his furniture stain had bled onto the carpet. The carpet is also not the original carpet that is in the rest of the house. It is pretty apparent that this is something he dealt with on a regular basis and did not disclose. We pulled the carpet up last weekend and noticed SEVERAL rings where it had flooded repeatedly. We also pulled the baseboards away and discovered a ton of black mold. We had 2 professionals come in our house to bid the mold removal and they both mentioned that mold like this has been around much longer than 6 months.

I have talked to the neighbors that are not having problems with water coming into their basement, but they have mentioned that that the seller had problems with water damage in the last 2 years.

We did our homework… There was an FHA inspection that did not catch it, and we also hired an outside inspector that did not catch it. The seller went out of his way to cover up the water damage and marked "no" on the disclosure to anything other than what I have quoted above. He never referred to any repairs being done in relation to flooding, as told to us by his ex-wife.

I know that I can sue the seller for the cost to repair the house, but I have had several contractors come in and tell me that this may not be a fixable problem because it looks like the builder broke through the water table when the house was build (we are close to a lake). I have heard that we have the option of "undoing" the sell. That the house was misrepresented and the seller knowingly did not disclose a problem. We certainly can’t afford to fix the problem, so we just cleaned out the basement, removed carpet and sheet rock contaminated with mold and tried to create a safe environment until we find out what our options are.

Does anyone have experience and know what are chances are of rescinding the sell of the home?

Thanks!!!

[HomeGuru]

Originally Posted by Pebbles123

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah

*Sorry for the long post, I am not crying anymore though!*

We purchased the house 6 months ago. In the sellers disclosure the seller stated that "5 years ago during some excessive snow pack and rain, we had some runoff issues in the crawl space."

This home was built in 2002, and the seller explained that this was a ONE TIME problem the first spring after the home was built, before the ground had taken root.

2 months ago during a heavy rain we had a little water come in the crawl space. I started asking around and stumbled across the sellers ex wife. She told us about her belongings being damaged 5 years ago, that he was suppose to have had someone in to fix the problem and guaranteed the work, but she stated it is something that continues to happen every spring during the snow melt and rain. She also named another area in the house where we would have problems in the spring.

Weekend before last we had heavy rains. We have had severe flooding in the crawl space and also flooding in the area of the living room that the seller’s ex-wife said it would flood in the spring during runoff, in addition to 4 other places around the perimeter of the home. Right after we closed on the house, and after the seller moved his furniture out, I noticed that there were stains on the carpet where his furniture stain had bled onto the carpet. The carpet is also not the original carpet that is in the rest of the house. It is pretty apparent that this is something he dealt with on a regular basis and did not disclose. We pulled the carpet up last weekend and noticed SEVERAL rings where it had flooded repeatedly. We also pulled the baseboards away and discovered a ton of black mold. We had 2 professionals come in our house to bid the mold removal and they both mentioned that mold like this has been around much longer than 6 months.

I have talked to the neighbors that are not having problems with water coming into their basement, but they have mentioned that that the seller had problems with water damage in the last 2 years.

We did our homework… There was an FHA inspection that did not catch it, and we also hired an outside inspector that did not catch it. The seller went out of his way to cover up the water damage and marked "no" on the disclosure to anything other than what I have quoted above. He never referred to any repairs being done in relation to flooding, as told to us by his ex-wife.

I know that I can sue the seller for the cost to repair the house, but I have had several contractors come in and tell me that this may not be a fixable problem because it looks like the builder broke through the water table when the house was build (we are close to a lake). I have heard that we have the option of "undoing" the sell. That the house was misrepresented and the seller knowingly did not disclose a problem. We certainly can’t afford to fix the problem, so we just cleaned out the basement, removed carpet and sheet rock contaminated with mold and tried to create a safe environment until we find out what our options are.

Does anyone have experience and know what are chances are of rescinding the sell of the home?

Thanks!!!

**A: it depends. There are various parties involved and you need to get each one to the table. Seller, both agents, FHA appraiser/inspector and home inspector.