Walk away of work it out?
Advice needed, and I’ll try to make this brief as possible: My husband and I just had a very thorough (2+ hours) inspection done on a 2-family house we had hoped to purchase in Bay Ridge. The price is right and it has everything we’d been looking for including the fact that the owner had…
Advice needed, and I’ll try to make this brief as possible: My husband and I just had a very thorough (2+ hours) inspection done on a 2-family house we had hoped to purchase in Bay Ridge. The price is right and it has everything we’d been looking for including the fact that the owner had everything renovated just a few years ago (and included zoned heating, central a/c, soundproofed floor, finished basement, etc.). He did the work for himself and family to live in, although recently had to take in some elderly relatives so needed more room and now lives in the house right next door. Unfortunately yesterday the inspector gave us the sobering news that a lot of the renovation work that was done to the place was sloppy and would need fixing, including some (if not all, couldn’t see) of the pipes were not laid/secured well, electrical upgrades (possibly not enough voltage running to house) and a lot of other smaller stuff. Even the owner seemed surprised/disappointed in the results. We are so glad we did the inspection early on as it was a sobering experience! We were going to just walk away since we don’t have the money for these kind of repairs right now, but the owner really wants us to be his neighbor and is offering to get the new work done himself (at no expense to us) or even pay for us to get our own estimates from electricians and plumbers, etc. and then give us a price reduction on the house according to the costs (I’d consider this option first). Does any of this seem reasonable? I have no idea how much money or time any of this would involve or if we’re just crazy for even still considering this house. Opinions welcome!
OP here. If anyone is curious, we had a plumber and electrician look at the house (plumber Timothy Myers highly recommended from this site) and were told the work was not really that bad (a little sloppy yes, but not in any danger of not working for the next 50 years). So although we appreciate the inspector’s point of view, we’re glad we went ahead and got the specialists opinions as well.
But inspectors have no liability, Slopeform. Sad but true! My friend tried to sue an inspector for missing what were blatant signs of a sinking foundation out on Long Island, and she lost even though she had what her lawyer thought was the best case he’d seen. NY State protects the buggers, and the inspectors contracts we sign actually say they are not responsible for their work.
Run Away Quickly…. Hurry.
OP again. I do appreciate the comments both pro and con. This was not the house discussed on forum a few weeks ago. We have had several meetings with the owner (we looked at house twice, he was present for inspection, plus several phone calls). He is offering to reimburse for the costs of the electrical fixes (we’d use our own electrician) and there are other things that we agreed would be fair for either us or himself to take care of. The inspection was very through, but of course we still don’t know what’s behind the walls. We are going to pay for a plumber estimate ourselves. We totally understand that owning a house will require a certain amount of repairs, especially over the years, and we do hope to have a decent amount set aside to cover these costs. We just don’t want to get in over our heads so if things turns out to be too costly or too extensive, we will have to walk away.
1:47 — Your comments are well taken. But I don’t see that anyone recommended letting the seller fix the house.
What the “gung ho” people were recommending was to negotiate a lower price sufficient to fund any needed repairs and renovations. I recommended exploring this — get some estimates of both cost and how much work woudl truly be involved, and then negotiate a price reduction. If OP has $100k of work and seller won’t take mroe than $20k off the price, then it is time to walk away. If seller will eat the whole cost in a price concession, it may be worth doing, depending upon OP’s stomach for it. OP would, of course, be bearing the risk of finding more stuff that required repairs, but that is true with any renovation. This is all about getting a fair price for the house. It wasn’t really clear, one way or the other, that the problems with the work were that dire. If the appraisal will support a mortgage at the original price, then OP can finance the work as part of a mortgage or HELOC. We did that, but that was before the subprime mess exploded, which has banks and appraisers a bit more cautious on LTV even for prime borrowers these days.
I agree with many of the posters that inspectors can both over and understate problems. They miss stuff behind the walls or through plain error, and they overstate things they see to make sure they are covered on liability.
I thought it was worth OP pursuing further to satisfy himself one way or the other whether to go ahead or not.
Walk away and say if your conditions aren’t met you can’t buy the place. You can do it nicely. It doesn’t have to be nasty. But protect yourself; it’s totally your right to look after yourself, please. Realtors always put a lot of pressure on buyers, but if there are no other offers on this house then you have the better negotiating position, not the seller.
Also fyi, NY State is a caveat emptor state, but the seller does have to inform other future buyers of these issues your inspector found, if future buyers ask questions of him about the state of the plumbing or electric. Now that he’s been informed of it by an engineer. That puts him in a worse position to get competing offers.
I’m disagreeing with so much of what is being said by the gung-ho people here. FYI, this house you’re talking about was the topic of a heated defense by Bay Ridge boosters a week or two ago on Forum. Some of whom knew the seller. So maybe take some of the too-positive comments with a grain of salt.
In my experience, our inspector didn’t tell us ENOUGH of what was wrong. He was not too negative, as some claim. Inspectors are not allowed to open up walls. So they can’t see everything. So how on earth do inspectors generally always say more negative things than are actually present? It’s not logical. In reality, homeowners always find more wrong than they thought once they start digging around or living somewhere, not less.
I would never agree to the guy fixing the problems for the very reason you want good relations with your seemingly nice neighbor! Jeepers, what horribly bad advice for people to say to go for that. If he does the work slowly or doesn’t do it correctly, you end up in a fight or lawsuit with your next door neighbor. Af for him being nice, you met the guy once. Sorry, but anyone can seem to be nice for a few hours.
What’s happening is you are excited and feeling very ready to own a house. But your enthusiasm is taking over a bit too much. I know this because that happened to us. I’m recognizing it in your tone. In the end, after fixing many things we took too lightly at the time of closing, we’re happy. But it was sure costly and stressful.
OP here. Thanks to everyone for the advice! The owner is willing to pay for the electrical issues and a few other things, but not the plumbing issue, but we’re willing to pay for a plumber to give us an estimate anyway. The plumbing concern is that the pipes seen underneath the basment drop ceiling are not well aligned/secured (sloppy work). The drop ceiling was installed as part of the ceiling to have easy access to these pipes and the owner claims that this particular plumbing work was done by a different person and that the pipes in the rest of the house are secured (I won’t go into his details as to why he claims he knows this). Not sure what to believe now. And if the basement didnt have a drop ceiling we wouldn’t even know about the pipes in the first place. He did live there for years with his family, but are we taking a huge chance here? Any further advice greatly appreciated!
I would get a good contractor to come back and take a look, I agree Inspectors can kill deals all the time. See what the contractors says and if you really love the house then make it work…