undisclosed damages after buying a house

[tenshi_R]

Washington

after buying a house we found a lot of issues that were not listed in the documents
and inspector conveniently missed them
we hired a lawyer last year but so far he made no progress
he says he cant get a hold of previous owners. or their daughter( who told us that everything has to go through her)
and she wont talk to us without a lawyer.

I cant tell if the lawyer is taking us for a ride or he really cant find the owners

we hired another inspector because the cracks on the walls are getting bigger and he finally found a sinking support beam
rotten from having water in crawl space every time it rains.

theres either a spring or wetland or swamp uphill from our house and it goes righ through the property
we replaced 3 sump pumps already.

suing for water issues and fixing the crawl space to have proper sump pump installed
and electrical panel that we had to replace because it was water damaged and buzzing
and the support beam that needs to be replaced
but the inspector said its an inexpensive fix. jus put some jacks under it...
which is BS because that's like putting ducktape on radiator hose.

will the value of the house go down if there are jack underneath the bean or is it really a common fix for that?

 

[FlyingRon]

You would have to show that the sellers KNEW about the the defect and had a duty to disclose (which they probably did unless you waived it).
Otherwise houses are sold as-is.

 

[tenshi_R]

they sure did.
they fixed the leak into the electrical panel but didn't replace it

I found 3 dead sump pumps in the house

and neighbors said they helped them pump the water out once...


problem is we bought the house during a dry season and there was no water in the crawl space for months before then it started raining and house almost got flooded because electrical panel was damaged and popped the circuit breaker for sump pump. I found it by accident and turned it back on.


I'm more worried about the lawyer. how do you not find the people to sue? for a whole year?
they re old and retired I'm sure they didn't leave the country or even state...

how would I even say it to a lawyer do I just tell him hes not doing his job? or that I want some results?

 

[tenshi_R]

they sure did.
they fixed the leak into the electrical panel but didn't replace it

I found 3 dead sump pumps in the house

and neighbors said they helped them pump the water out once...

the Jacuzzi house almost collapsed on top of me(lucky it wasn't my wife and kid. we were about to start using it and I decided to shake the thing and then pulled it apart with bare hands without using any tools)
the fence is faling now
neighbors having bursting water pipes 6 times in last 2 years


problem is we bought the house during a dry season and there was no water in the crawl space for months before then it started raining and house almost got flooded because electrical panel was damaged and popped the circuit breaker for sump pump. I found it by accident and turned it back on.


I'm more worried about the lawyer. how do you not find the people to sue? for a whole year?
they re old and retired I'm sure they didn't leave the country or even state...

how would I even say it to a lawyer do I just tell him hes not doing his job? or that I want some results?

 

[FarmerJ]

you wrote> and inspector conveniently missed them< I don't see you having a lot of luck there if this inspector was hired by you , if inspector was hired by them then you should have had your own! You wrote >neighbors having bursting water pipes 6 times in last 2 years< does the neighbors pipes go thru your land ? or under your house ? were there disclosure issues where they lied in the paper work ? You wrote about the fence falling , Is the fence it self totally on your side of the lot line or is it right on the lot line ? if its right on the lot line then are you sure it is your fence ? Your fix for the beam is to put in metal jack post that can be turned and you slowly maybe every other day no more than say 1/8th inch so the house can slowly be put back where its supposed to be then if you need new wooden post you can put It / them in and you make sure the floor ends just arent sitting where the can be soaked again by using solid concrete block as base , then when its all done you remove the jacks and when the time comes that you do sell you make sure you note that you replaced basement support post (s) that were in poor shape and when and this should not have any bearing on the saleability of the home.
( do you know if the structure over the jacuzi had a permit filed for it or not ? or if one wasn't required )

 

[justalayman]

Washington

after buying a house we found a lot of issues that were not listed in the documents
and inspector conveniently missed them
we hired a lawyer last year but so far he made no progress
he says he cant get a hold of previous owners. or their daughter( who told us that everything has to go through her)
and she wont talk to us without a lawyer.

I cant tell if the lawyer is taking us for a ride or he really cant find the owners

what have YOU done to find the sellers? Surely you should expect the attorney to attempt to find them but that does not preclude you from playing detective yourself, especially given the situation


re: daughter demanding involvement; either she has legal standing or not to demand this. If not, ignore her. If she does, that is where you serve the sellers.

re; inspector; read your contract with him, if you hired him. If you did, most inspector contracts limit their liability to cost of inspection. If not your inspector, you have no claim unless you can prove complicity in deception of undisclosed defects.

unless the inspector is also a certified structural engineer, he has no right to provide a remedy for the issue.


there is likely a fix, other than a sump pump, for the water issue but can be quite costly. It may require creating a damn on the high side and diverting the flow around the home. How deep it would need to be would be determined on how deep the water is flowing. It may be as simple as installing an underground drain system on the high side of the home to collect the underground flow and divert it around the home or it could require a much more entailed construct.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

Support jacks are commonly used in older homes to deal with sagging beams.

 

[tenshi_R]

my realtor had the phone number of the daughter so he gave it to the lawyer. I'm assuming that they are simply not responding or the lawyer is just not doing his job.

daughter told us neither she or previous owners would talk to us without a lawyer so we hired one.
now they are nowhere to be found according to the lawyer.

the beam goes across the whole bottom floor its not a post unfortunately. if it was a support post i wouldn't even bother it would be replaced already.

but what I'm asking will having jackstands affect selling price? I'm assuming it will
so if it will affect selling price that means we either have to fix or claim whatever the value decrease would be from that issue from the owners.
they covered up the cracks on the walls with paint.

my wife was impatient and did the inspection when i was at work even though i told her to wait for me.
I'm not an engineer or claim to be one but i can see the obvious and i was the one who found all the major issues after the inspector but we still had to hire another one so it was all legit and on paper from a credible source.
i asked them many times about the value decrease from having jackstands and they kinda avoided the question...

a lot of this crap is partially my wife not listening to what i tell her and doing things without knowing whats goin on or doing any kind of research before throwing money at it

( one of the reasons why we are divorcing right now) but I'm trying to get this settled before we separate so she don't have to deal with all this. because she will probably dig even a bigger hole for herself and waste more money.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

Did they lie on some state required home inspection form that you can prove? Otherwise, you looked at that house, you had it inspected with the inspector of your choice and you now own your decision to purchase. You have not presented any evidence they violated any law you presented here. If your marriage was only worth the price of a house, it was not much of a marriage to begin with.

 

[tenshi_R]

thanks for giving me relationship advice. you missed the part where I said "one of the things"

she hired an inspector recommended by the realtor.
I mean he wants to sell us the house so of course inspector found no major problems and covered his ass with the liability papers etc...
but the fact is he missed about 20.000 dollars worth of repairs that previous owners knew about and didn't put on the disclosure papers. they said house has no major problems.
at that point I didn't know what the cracks in the walls mean.
but they are obvious even to untrained person like me. I got suspicious and started researching.

thers no way inspector could have missed them you have to literally avoid looking at any walls to not see them

about a year after we moved in. the trim on the bathroom door snapped from pressure because the door moved so much I had to trim it 3 times on the corner because it wouldn't close.
and electrical panel was buzzing so loud I could hear it as soon as I open garage door. somehow he missed that too. and the fact that its covered in rust behind the metal cover which I belive was part of his inspection to take that cover off and look behind it

the realtor wasted our time giving me deadbeat lawyers who wouldn't take the case so I had to find my own. he would refer me to wrong type of lawyers who don't even deal with this kind of case.

I didn't even know what type of lawyer I need to get. until about a year and a half later when one of them finaly said that I need different type of lawyer and that they don't know why the realtor send me to their office.


so at this point I just want to know:
how to tell if the lawyer is wasting our time and just burning through our deposit without really doing any work?

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

You have no proof they had prior knowledge of many major issues. You are speculating. That is why they refuse to talk to you. If you did not hire your own inspector, that is not their fault either. There is a term called due diligence. If you had concerns about any issues regarding the home that are not covered by a mandatory state law disclosure, you should have reduced them to writing and had an escrow account established or repairs made before the contract was consummated.

 

[FarmerJ]

Unless directed to do so that hired inspector doesn't /didn't have to open the electrical panel up and report on it. Normally inspectors only report on the things they can see and since they have disclaimers about things they might miss, As far as the seller goes even with a atty the seller and the sellers adult child don't have to talk to you or your atty. If it was me Id say to just stop the bleed , if your going to get divorced let the houses value drop since it should make it easier for one of you to buy the other out. I say stop the bleed because any more money spent on a atty might be just a unproductive waste. THEN next time around when you hire a inspector you make what you want looked at written into a agreement with the inspector and if they wont do it then find one who will, AS far as the house and the financial mess & mistakes made by both of you (then its fair expect her to have to live with the financial pain too even if its at settlement time) If you want the seller to have to answer you in a court then I suggest you keep spending money that could be used after the divorce is over to fix the house up if you are the one to end up with it and go ahead and sue the sellers which still doesn't promise you will get a dime since by the time you prove to a court your claims they may have already spent every thing on nursing home care or other bills.