Home buying thread

Borzak said:

No idea how any of that works. But do inspectors not carry anything to cover their obvious errors? I'm not an engineer at all but I carry E&O insurance when working which is for errors and omissions. Of course you would have to sue to get to that point.

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Inspectors in TX are run at the state level, and the ability to get an inspector to testify against another inspector is pretty much zilch. And yes, it would require litigation, but the odds of winning against the inspector are minimal because we would have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they did not do their job. That's what makes the inspection report so damning. They carefully worded the document to say "we see this, but if you suspect it's this, then call X person." In the washroom, for example, there is wall-to-wall mold where the washer and dryer used to be. Dude's inspection, when I looked at the report more closely, checked the connection to the water hose and whether the washer worked. We never kept the appliances.

Cad said:

It seems like a no-brainer that a lawyer would take this on contingency (and you generally pay nothing on contingency, not sure who told you do). If they're consistently refusing you it's because there are problems with the case that you may not have had explained to you or maybe didn't understand when they did.

What exactly did they say when they turned you down?

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You would think it's a no-brainer, and almost everyone outside the legal field agrees. That said, every single lawyer pushes back, saying we're up against a two-year battle. Well, no shit, we want to avoid lengthy litigation. If you present a compelling enough case, unless they can prove that there was permitted work done and that we caused this decay and deterioration after we moved into the home, you push for arbitration. Nearly all the lawyers have led with the lengthy trial and the unlikelihood that we can win, and never stopped to look at the evidence we presented. There are no city permits. There is wall-to-wall mold. There is an addition built at ground level with no sill plate, and the walls are essentially gutted. The ceiling is sagging, the insulation is rotting, there are cockroaches, and so on. But, I had an engineer show up today who said, "Well, I would strip away 12" from the floor inside and outside to see what it is under there, but this foundation looks good." Buddy, do you understand there are no damn layers between the concrete and the floor in a room that is a death trap? The foundation, across the entire home, surprisingly is a near 0" perfectly flat and level surface. But the problem isn't the foundation; it is what is sitting on top of it, aka that additional room. I swear, people keep telling us "well, you buy an older home..." uh-huh, and so I buy an older home, suddenly that's a free pass to completely take advantage of people? Nope.

Received an email today that the insurance provider has refused to cover the house, which puts the mortgage at risk. I spoke with a real lawyer who guided us on what to do next. Our realtor was made aware of the issue the weekend prior to Memorial Day. Suffice it to say, our realtor also did not notify the realty company for the last three weeks of what was happening. When the mortgage company called them, they called us, and we let them have it. Now the broker is scrambling because:

We confirmed the 300+ sq ft is non-permitted.
We confirmed the non-permitted work resulted in significant moisture and rot that compromised the additional room + several areas of the home.
We confirmed that the city is not pleased with the level of work that went undetected; they are reviewing 'options.'
We confirmed that the company will have its president call us tomorrow to discuss legal recourse, since they are at fault for breaches on several fronts.
We confirmed the lender is now aware that there is no insurance on the home due to the pre-existing damage; as a result, the mortgage contract is at risk.

At this point, the broker is scrambling to reach a resolution. Initial estimates put the damage/remediation at around $100-$150k, including time lost and damages. Depending on what happens next, at the very least, it sounds like our realtor is about to get shit canned, and the inspector (who's married to one of the realty reps) is about to cost his wife her job, most likely.

The realtor agency called us back today. Said we should have pushed more for information during our option period. I asked them if they knew about timestamps because the text messages and emails I have show that we asked about certain things during the 'option' period, and nobody from the realtor side responded. They had all this new information on the property that they could produce 'now,' but when we needed answers to questions and downplayed, none of it seemed available. Basically, we are screwed.

My best chance is that the inspection team will have a recommendation on legal recourse, but I can't afford any lawyers to fight this, and I can't afford the renovations necessary to fix the core systems in the home, like the roof and foundation, to make it decent.

Intrinsic said:

Started clearing, grubbing, grading lot today.

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Mailbox wins!

Kiroy said:

May wanna contact whoever holds the note as well to see if they will or can assist. Did you say you did a huge down payment? How much is mortgaged?

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The mortgage is around $300k—the insurance company has written the house off its coverage. We found more evidence of blatant concealment because they openly installed such new trim on the outside. The forensics guy says this is way too new (obviously) to have not been a cover-up. The boards have zero rot and were freshly painted. Everything underneath the foundation is destroyed. So, once we have his document, we will have a lawyer who will take the previous owners, realtor, and inspector to task. The roof, we discovered, is spongy and about to collapse after they walked on it to inspect it. The prior inspector flagged nothing about it as dangerous, but it cracked in multiple spots, and where it didn't crack, you can hear it give way as you walk on it. Doubt we'll get much from the inspector, but dude dropped the ball big time, so that's one of our targets.

Home Inspection is probably an even more crooked industry than Realty. Goddamn.

Inspector paid off by the sellers? The only thing that makes sense, aside from sheer incompetence / malfeasance.

Jysin said:

sheer incompetence / malfeasance.

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This is the majority of home inspectors. They are usually retired contractors who were probably shifty/shady when they did that shit as well.

Khane said:

This is the majority of home inspectors. They are usually retired contractors who were probably shifty/shady when they did that shit as well.

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Yeah. Most of them are shit. Simply checkmark things without really looking. Higher value homes get the good inspectors, though. I sold my main home a handful of years ago, and they had teams of people checking things all day. Worked everything and crawled around everywhere. Found two stuck valves in them exterior hose bibs. Bank not gonna give a jumbo loan on a $400 home inspection.

Intrinsic said:

some Indians on Fiverr are doing a full 3D photo rendering and walk-through

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Intrinsic said:

I don't know man, tried to find someone local and through Facebook builder groups. Unfortunately, our drafter / designer is still stuck in the stone age and his renders are as bare bones as it gets so had to look elsewhere. Did use an American bro to do our HVAC Manual J, D, and S!



Yeah, of course. I'm trying not to spam the thread with every little conversation. There's stuff almost daily with all the decisions and conversations going on, but will reserve progress updates to some of the bigger things.

One of the last remaining major conversations is soffit. I think I mentioned before that the designer wants the house to have 30" soffit. His wall detail and other drawings show 2' - 6".

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The builder thinks it is excessive. And we have no idea because no one can point me to a house locally that has 30" overhang and the largest our builder has done is 24". The rendering above was done with 30" per plan. But it is something that we just can't figure out because there's no place to go look at all this on our exact house side-by-side before the build. And it has been challenging trying to exactly nail down the cost implications of 16" vs. 20/24/30".

My thought yesterday was that all these pictures are done without gutters. No one models gutters or renders them b/c gutters are ugly and no one wants to see that on their beautiful picture. But what dawned on me is that gutters are 6" wide, so if we have 30" overhang + 6" gutter we're going to have 36" sitting out there. So maybe we can get away with 20" or 24" and then have the 6" gutter visually make up that difference. It'll be painted the same color as the trim/fascia board.

I also really need to beef up my columns. They look too skinny proportional to the rest of the house. I LOVE the back view. No idea why but it is so cool to me. It is everything we want and really, to us, makes the front look so boring. Hopefully some small tweaks can get us there through the process. Wish we could capture whatever it is about the back that we love and incorporate that into the front.

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Am I just misinterpreting what you're saying? 2'6" and 30" are the exact same measurement.

I feel like the really long soffits are on a lot of the really modern construction lake houses by me (albeit with a pretty low pitched roof as well). I like the look, but I have no clue about the pros/cons of such a design. One thing that does end up looking a little goofy are the downspouts.

This is a Google street view I grabbed of a place I used to live by. I'd guess these were closer to 2', but it illustrates the downspout goofiness and how the gutters factor in.

Intrinsic said:

I don't know man, tried to find someone local and through Facebook builder groups. Unfortunately, our drafter / designer is still stuck in the stone age and his renders are as bare bones as it gets so had to look elsewhere. Did use an American bro to do our HVAC Manual J, D, and S!



Yeah, of course. I'm trying not to spam the thread with every little conversation. There's stuff almost daily with all the decisions and conversations going on, but will reserve progress updates to some of the bigger things.

One of the last remaining major conversations is soffit. I think I mentioned before that the designer wants the house to have 30" soffit. His wall detail and other drawings show 2' - 6".

View attachment 631567

The builder thinks it is excessive. And we have no idea because no one can point me to a house locally that has 30" overhang and the largest our builder has done is 24". The rendering above was done with 30" per plan. But it is something that we just can't figure out because there's no place to go look at all this on our exact house side-by-side before the build. And it has been challenging trying to exactly nail down the cost implications of 16" vs. 20/24/30".

My thought yesterday was that all these pictures are done without gutters. No one models gutters or renders them b/c gutters are ugly and no one wants to see that on their beautiful picture. But what dawned on me is that gutters are 6" wide, so if we have 30" overhang + 6" gutter we're going to have 36" sitting out there. So maybe we can get away with 20" or 24" and then have the 6" gutter visually make up that difference. It'll be painted the same color as the trim/fascia board.

I also really need to beef up my columns. They look too skinny proportional to the rest of the house. I LOVE the back view. No idea why but it is so cool to me. It is everything we want and really, to us, makes the front look so boring. Hopefully some small tweaks can get us there through the process. Wish we could capture whatever it is about the back that we love and incorporate that into the front.

View attachment 631568View attachment 631569

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Nothing wrong with 30" eves. I have 48" eves. Builder decided it was a good idea in 1977 I guess. That said, I have a wicked huge amount of insulation in my attic, but plenty of space at r the edges so the eves vent like crazy. No rooftop or ridge vents, and there has never once been an ice damn on my roof. It also helps shingles last longer. It also provides fun opportunities for lighting.