What’s the worst/most expensive thing you’ve discovered was wrong after closing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shifting foundation. Had to have engineers lift the house.

Wow, when did you find this out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not me but a neighbor on Long Island when I lived there bought a home in 2015 and got a notice in 2018 it needs to be demolished or raised 8 feet in the air.

Turns out in Sandy in 2012 home was considered over 50 percent damaged in Superstorm Sandy and lost its CO. However, town backlogged due to thousands of damaged homes and paper form filled out by inspectors while power out in Sandy not keypunched till 2018 which got him the letter.

Happened to like a dozen people my old town.

I would think this would have to be a disclosure!!! That's terrible. The people who sold are abhorrent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Failed septic. House was listed as being on public sewer when it wasn’t. Our realtor didn’t say a thing about the neighborhood being on septic or that I should consider doing a drain line inspection. The home owner moved out of the home before listing it and prior to that pulled permits but never did the work on the septic or closed out the permits. It was 25k to fix the septic that began leaking in the yard a week after moving in. The neighbors knew and complained when the previously home owner owned the house and thought they had it fixed. They didn’t- just sold it on to someone else.

Wow, this one is shocking. Not because it's the worst (that probably goes to all the foundation issues) but I can't believe this made it through closing without being known.

[Anonymous]

We just found out that all of the bathrooms had been previously wallpapered and rather than remove it, they just painted over it. I wondered why they opted to use flat paint in the bathrooms, now I know why. Every time we shower, paint streaks down the wall. So we now have to remove the paint and wallpaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failed septic. House was listed as being on public sewer when it wasn’t. Our realtor didn’t say a thing about the neighborhood being on septic or that I should consider doing a drain line inspection. The home owner moved out of the home before listing it and prior to that pulled permits but never did the work on the septic or closed out the permits. It was 25k to fix the septic that began leaking in the yard a week after moving in. The neighbors knew and complained when the previously home owner owned the house and thought they had it fixed. They didn’t- just sold it on to someone else.

Wow, this one is shocking. Not because it's the worst (that probably goes to all the foundation issues) but I can't believe this made it through closing without being known.

You should go after the realtor (and I am one). Guaranty fund if it's in MD. That's insane that you didnt know the house was on septic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NV new home Delaware beaches.

Drywall installed improperly
Plumbing in Kitchen installed backward. Flood

Bathroom upstairs plumbing was not hooked up flood
Ground in bathrooms installed incorrectly
Thermostats installed incorrectly
Air conditioning unit not only installed incorrectly fire hazard recalled before installation
Crawl space flooded
All cabinets installed incorrectly
Grading caused flooding inside the house

Built in 2019

Never again NV homes

I hope you have/had recourse

NP. Sorry to hear this. Like PP asked, did you have recourse? We're buying an NV Home right now and this got me very scared.

[Anonymous]

Bad neighbors. I mean really, really bad neighbors. The house had been vacant for so long that neighbors had allowed their children to use our property as "the park", which usually consisted of constant loud, prolonged ear piercing screaming while I WFH. 🙄 They also attempted to use our backyard for organized sports practices, without asking our permission or even acknowledging our existence as the new owners of the home. Never again, I was so much more diligent about visiting our current home repeatedly, at all hours of day and night. So far so good, 3 years in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just found out that all of the bathrooms had been previously wallpapered and rather than remove it, they just painted over it. I wondered why they opted to use flat paint in the bathrooms, now I know why. Every time we shower, paint streaks down the wall. So we now have to remove the paint and wallpaper.

No you don’t. Painting over wallpaper is extremely common and fine. You can just put primer over the wallpaper and good to go. The wall was probably prepared for the wallpaper so nbd. All old houses have this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just found out that all of the bathrooms had been previously wallpapered and rather than remove it, they just painted over it. I wondered why they opted to use flat paint in the bathrooms, now I know why. Every time we shower, paint streaks down the wall. So we now have to remove the paint and wallpaper.

No you don’t. Painting over wallpaper is extremely common and fine. You can just put primer over the wallpaper and good to go. The wall was probably prepared for the wallpaper so nbd. All old houses have this.

DP. I had this happen to me as well and paid to remove wallpaper/paint, found a wall of black mold under it. It looked like we’d painted it black. Paint traps moisture under wallpaper and yep usually grows black mold. You are a monster if you do this, no it’s not normal or acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Imagine a two story building that is advertised as a townhouse and looks like every other townhouse. You park inside a garage on the ground level and there are inside stairs that go up. You live mostly on a second level. Sounds like a townhouse. Looks like a townhouse. In fact it was a condo. A portion of my living space was above a neighbor. Not that that matters. I was greatly disappointed in the poor quality of the place. I also realized when they told me it was a townhouse (multiple huge billboards prominently calling their properties townhouses) they were giving me incorrect information as it was really a condo. Not that a condo is a problem in itself. If I realized early on it was a condo I would have been less likely to ever to purchase it. At time of closing they told me I had to get condo insurance. All the documents called it a condo. Well I was 95% done by then having picked every detail in the place. So I realized my mistake at the end. A condo may have been just fine in theory but again the workmanship was the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a two story building that is advertised as a townhouse and looks like every other townhouse. You park inside a garage on the ground level and there are inside stairs that go up. You live mostly on a second level. Sounds like a townhouse. Looks like a townhouse. In fact it was a condo. A portion of my living space was above a neighbor. Not that that matters. I was greatly disappointed in the poor quality of the place. I also realized when they told me it was a townhouse (multiple huge billboards prominently calling their properties townhouses) they were giving me incorrect information as it was really a condo. Not that a condo is a problem in itself. If I realized early on it was a condo I would have been less likely to ever to purchase it. At time of closing they told me I had to get condo insurance. All the documents called it a condo. Well I was 95% done by then having picked every detail in the place. So I realized my mistake at the end. A condo may have been just fine in theory but again the workmanship was the issue.

There are plenty of townhouses that are condos. They are not mutually exclusive terms. In fact, there are also single family homes that are condos. It's a form of ownership not the type of structure that makes something a condo. So the information was not incorrect. It was your understanding which was wrong.

[Anonymous]

No shower pan under shower. Over kitchen.

Inspectors won’t really do a shower pan test (look it up on YouTube). Because it could reveal/result in damage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a two story building that is advertised as a townhouse and looks like every other townhouse. You park inside a garage on the ground level and there are inside stairs that go up. You live mostly on a second level. Sounds like a townhouse. Looks like a townhouse. In fact it was a condo. A portion of my living space was above a neighbor. Not that that matters. I was greatly disappointed in the poor quality of the place. I also realized when they told me it was a townhouse (multiple huge billboards prominently calling their properties townhouses) they were giving me incorrect information as it was really a condo. Not that a condo is a problem in itself. If I realized early on it was a condo I would have been less likely to ever to purchase it. At time of closing they told me I had to get condo insurance. All the documents called it a condo. Well I was 95% done by then having picked every detail in the place. So I realized my mistake at the end. A condo may have been just fine in theory but again the workmanship was the issue.

There are plenty of townhouses that are condos. They are not mutually exclusive terms. In fact, there are also single family homes that are condos. It's a form of ownership not the type of structure that makes something a condo. So the information was not incorrect. It was your understanding which was wrong.

Everything said above is true…

When looking at “townhouse” communities, there might be a mix 3 floor townhouses (with condo ownership) where some townhouse units include all 3 floors and other units include the upper 2 floors and a separate standalone unit on the first floor. There are a bunch of developments like this along the orange line corridor in NOVA and some in NW DC. If a person has never been exposed to these types of communities, I can see how they might make some bad assumptions.

[Anonymous]

We discovered that most of the improvements the flipper had done on the home were done without a permit and then there was no certificate of occupancy. This came to light six months after closing when the tax bill came in much higher than expected, and the town had imposed a bunch of fees for not having a cert. A lawyer was needed to prove that it was the previous owner's responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how you could not perceive the difference between a townhouse and a condo with a downstairs neighbor before closing unless you had never seen the property in person?

Np, and I was wondering the same thing. Like, how do you make the most expensive purchase of your life and miss such a significant detail? A two over two is always a condo.