Sellers covered up rot/mold

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:eh, it's weird that this HUGE problem in two of the main living areas was never noted on the initial tour of the house, home inspection or final walk thru by anyone - not the buyer, not the agents, not the inspector. How can that be?

Is that buyer's remorse I smell? Do I hear someone trying to get out of their own poor decision making and trying to pin the responsibility on someone else? That may or not be the case here. If Op would elaborate on how these very significant problems were completely overlooked by everyone, every time they were in that house that would be helpful. Right now I'm having a hard time seeing this as described..

I only saw the house 3x before closing on it. I never noticed it. No buyers remorse. Please don't think that. I'm not trying to get out of the house. My remorse is for not moving all furniture and allowing sellers to abandon furniture. I also wish I had paid more attention during my inspection. I thought I had done my due diligence. I still think I did. I wonder now what was in the garage that prevented me from seeing the after damage there. I spent half an hour in the garage during the inspection. I love the house. I actually think I've understated the damage. The floor in the corner fell in tonight. my foot can now go through to the basement.

I'm not trying to pin responsibility. In a way I hope this is a caution for future buyers. I'm very sad about this whole ordeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was the desk wet and moldy?

Or just the floors?

Were the rafters bare in the basement or were they hidden by ceiling tiles?

How do you hide a wet moldy desk in your living room? Enquiring minds would love to know.

The back has mold up the back at least 4 inches. Want to buy it?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eh, it's weird that this HUGE problem in two of the main living areas was never noted on the initial tour of the house, home inspection or final walk thru by anyone - not the buyer, not the agents, not the inspector. How can that be?

Is that buyer's remorse I smell? Do I hear someone trying to get out of their own poor decision making and trying to pin the responsibility on someone else? That may or not be the case here. If Op would elaborate on how these very significant problems were completely overlooked by everyone, every time they were in that house that would be helpful. Right now I'm having a hard time seeing this as described..

I was thinking the same... that OP is having a bad case of the buyer's remorse.

I'm starting to agree with you. I am the agent who suggested OP could at least halt the disbursement of funds because it is Virginia, and no response to that - twice now. So what is this - just a pot stirrer? What's really going on because all I see is a lot of complaining and not a lot of doing anything to fix it.

I've been told there is no recourse in va. I've contacted everyone. We had a month long rent back so the actual closing was in April. The disbursement of funds was a long time ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eh, it's weird that this HUGE problem in two of the main living areas was never noted on the initial tour of the house, home inspection or final walk thru by anyone - not the buyer, not the agents, not the inspector. How can that be?

Is that buyer's remorse I smell? Do I hear someone trying to get out of their own poor decision making and trying to pin the responsibility on someone else? That may or not be the case here. If Op would elaborate on how these very significant problems were completely overlooked by everyone, every time they were in that house that would be helpful. Right now I'm having a hard time seeing this as described..

I only saw the house 3x before closing on it. I never noticed it. No buyers remorse. Please don't think that. I'm not trying to get out of the house. My remorse is for not moving all furniture and allowing sellers to abandon furniture. I also wish I had paid more attention during my inspection. I thought I had done my due diligence. I still think I did. I wonder now what was in the garage that prevented me from seeing the after damage there. I spent half an hour in the garage during the inspection. I love the house. I actually think I've understated the damage. The floor in the corner fell in tonight. my foot can now go through to the basement.

I'm not trying to pin responsibility. In a way I hope this is a caution for future buyers. I'm very sad about this whole ordeal.

.

I'm so sorry, OP. Thank you for the heads up on what to look for and never allow. As to the garage - maybe they had a refrigerator or tool desk there? Sounds like they went far out of their way to conceal this and that sounds like fraud. Hard to believe you have no recourse - scary and unfair. Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous]

That sucks OP.

Surely there is a lawyer somewhere who can find a way to sue them?

[Anonymous]

Get your agent involved!

[Anonymous]

Do you have any recourse through the rent back?

[Anonymous]

Agent again.

You do not have to agree to the release of the deposit that the title company is holding. Did you already sign off on that? With a rentback, the sellers should have escrowed all the money for rent and deposit and only get the deposit back when you agree. So, what happened there. Please don't tell me there was no deposit...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agent again.

You do not have to agree to the release of the deposit that the title company is holding. Did you already sign off on that? With a rentback, the sellers should have escrowed all the money for rent and deposit and only get the deposit back when you agree. So, what happened there. Please don't tell me there was no deposit...

We had a similar problem, where it was clear that he sellers knew about a water problem but did not disclose. After much back and forth with our agent (no help) and the the inspector (no help and no legal responsibility) we talked to a lawyer. He suggested that before retaining him that we send a strongly worded email to the sellers and imply that we were talking to a lawyer, while requesting half the money for repairs. They complied and we received about 4k to permanently fix the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:eh, it's weird that this HUGE problem in two of the main living areas was never noted on the initial tour of the house, home inspection or final walk thru by anyone - not the buyer, not the agents, not the inspector. How can that be?

Is that buyer's remorse I smell? Do I hear someone trying to get out of their own poor decision making and trying to pin the responsibility on someone else? That may or not be the case here. If Op would elaborate on how these very significant problems were completely overlooked by everyone, every time they were in that house that would be helpful. Right now I'm having a hard time seeing this as described..

I only saw the house 3x before closing on it. I never noticed it. No buyers remorse. Please don't think that. I'm not trying to get out of the house. My remorse is for not moving all furniture and allowing sellers to abandon furniture. I also wish I had paid more attention during my inspection. I thought I had done my due diligence. I still think I did. I wonder now what was in the garage that prevented me from seeing the after damage there. I spent half an hour in the garage during the inspection. I love the house. I actually think I've understated the damage. The floor in the corner fell in tonight. my foot can now go through to the basement.

I'm not trying to pin responsibility. In a way I hope this is a caution for future buyers. I'm very sad about this whole ordeal.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare. I'm so sorry that you're going through that. What you are describing is a very, very serious problem.

Obviously for the floor to actually cave in like that the water issues had to have been going on for a while.

Was the problem evident in the garage during your walk through? What about the basement?

How much time in between your final inspection and your closing/walk through? I would think that if the seller noticed a problem like that at any time - even during moving that they would have been obligated to say something about it if only to mitigate the damage. I mean if you have an inspection and the AC breaks down or an appliance stops working before closing - don't you say something? That happened when we bought our house and the owners absolutely told us about it.

As a seller, we have pared down furniture, taken (most) decorative items off of our counter tops and removed area rugs just to make sure that potential buyers can get a real look at our house. We have made our house available for viewing during all hours and all types of weather - we are hiding nothing. We do have furniture left in the house obviously (we have not moved out) but we have done what we could to make our rooms as visible as possible. But even with the limited amount of stuff left in our house, I can see how it would be possible to place a piece of furniture just so...that it would cover up a problem. No way would we ever do something like that but I can see how easily someone could do that. I can also see how easily someone could accuse an (innocent) seller of doing. It's sad. I would be fine if an inspector needed to move a piece of furniture to get a better look but I don't know that they are allowed to do that. Can I give them the go ahead in advance?

I have no idea who you should contact about these problems, Op. Would insurance cover any of this damage? I hope that you are able to get this all resolved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, talk to your neighbors.

I bet they know exactly when this occured.

We discovered some issues, not as big as yours, after the fact.

Talking to the neighbors it came out that the sellers were aware of the issue.

Yes but did that help you?

[Anonymous]

I did not read through this whole thread, but we also bought a house with mold 10 years ago. Our sellers did not disclose it, but the inspector found it in our crawl space and recommended abating it. The house did not smell, at least not from that. At first, our sellers balked and did not want to pay. We eventually settled; they gave us $10,000 for it (what we were told it would cost), but it only cost us about $1,500 to get rid of. Just wanted to share my experience; if you're stuck with it, maybe it won't cost as much to get rid of as you think. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not read through this whole thread, but we also bought a house with mold 10 years ago. Our sellers did not disclose it, but the inspector found it in our crawl space and recommended abating it. The house did not smell, at least not from that. At first, our sellers balked and did not want to pay. We eventually settled; they gave us $10,000 for it (what we were told it would cost), but it only cost us about $1,500 to get rid of. Just wanted to share my experience; if you're stuck with it, maybe it won't cost as much to get rid of as you think. Good luck.

Wow you certainly scammed them. Karma will get you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not read through this whole thread, but we also bought a house with mold 10 years ago. Our sellers did not disclose it, but the inspector found it in our crawl space and recommended abating it. The house did not smell, at least not from that. At first, our sellers balked and did not want to pay. We eventually settled; they gave us $10,000 for it (what we were told it would cost), but it only cost us about $1,500 to get rid of. Just wanted to share my experience; if you're stuck with it, maybe it won't cost as much to get rid of as you think. Good luck.

You think that's right, huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did not read through this whole thread, but we also bought a house with mold 10 years ago. Our sellers did not disclose it, but the inspector found it in our crawl space and recommended abating it. The house did not smell, at least not from that. At first, our sellers balked and did not want to pay. We eventually settled; they gave us $10,000 for it (what we were told it would cost), but it only cost us about $1,500 to get rid of. Just wanted to share my experience; if you're stuck with it, maybe it won't cost as much to get rid of as you think. Good luck.

Wow you certainly scammed them. Karma will get you.

Pretty much. What a crappy thing to do to someone.