What Options Do We Have If We Bought A House In The Last Month That Is Now Falling Apart?
Sunday, December 27th, 2009 at
3:33 pm
We bought an older home in Alaska recentl. We had an inspection done but it didn’t list any of what we are finding now. At least two exterior walls are rotting, the bathroom floors need to be replaced and I have just found this morning that the drywall under the stairs is rotting and I’m sure we will find much more before long. Is there anything we can do and if not where is the best place to start? Again, we live in Alaska and winter will soon be upon us.
Tagged with: Apart • Bought • Falling • Have • House • Last • Month • Options • That • What
Filed under: home inspection
I would contact a lawyer asap and ask them what your rights are. I think the inspector may have some explaining to do!
Good Luck.
matty has it right.asap.did the real estate recommend the inspector?he is responsible.that is the reason for the inspection.good luck.go get em.
It sounds like you didn’t have a real inspection done. It sounds like your bank’s appraisal inspector did his normal walk-through (about $800 in Alaska… a rip off) but you didn’t get an engineer’s inspection (about $500). An appraiser has nearly no training and basically walks around to make sure the house has at least 4 walls and a roof. The only thing they are trained to look for are obvious things like something that looks like a smoke detector (although they are not trained to test to see if they actually work. They will push the button and if it makes a sound they assume that it can detect smoke, but that is not necessarily the case, what they are really looking for is “loud noise machines” …but I digress…) The bank requires this to make sure they aren’t loaning money for a vacant lot. An engineer’s report comes from an actual engineer who can spot things like rotting walls etc. If you didn’t hire an engineer to inspect the property…. you’re basically hosed. The appraisal inspector can only tell you what the house is worth if it is in great condition, he/she can’t tell you what the condition is because they are not an engineer and can barely tell the difference between a stack of wood and an outbuilding. For the bank to charge you $800 for this “service” is one of the biggest rip offs in real estate but it is a requirement. All an appraiser does is verify that the house exists and then checks recent sales prices of similar homes and reports to the bank that the money offered on the home makes sense. A 7th grader could do it. You can’t sue a 7th grader and you can’t sue a home appraiser. They offer no warranty on their services because other than proving that the structure exists they offer no services at all.