re: #270 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

When I sold real estate—36,7,8 years ago—we had to make sure we knew all the problems that might exist with a property, and get a signed statement from the buyers that we’d informed them of them. If not, it could bite us on the ass. Hard.

Yeah, I bought my first house 38 yrs ago and the agent was great. I noticed a bit of difference between her and the second one (a guy) when I bought the second house 14 yrs later. I’ve been doing a lot of research on my own and can pretty much spot potential future problems, but you do need to know the age of mechanicals, any renos, etc unless the property is advertised “as is”. Even the permits at the county office aren’t always right, either. Not only was there water damage to roof rafters in the last house (I didn’t go into the attic myself but depended on the “inspector”), there was a leak in one of the bathrooms going into the cellar, which I threatened with a lawsuit if it wasn’t fixed. They fixed that because it was a sanitary issue, but not the rafters. I was told by a lawyer that there was nothing I could do about that one. It’s always a “caveat emptor” situation.

So believe me, knowing what you’re looking for as far as defects is pretty much the buyer’s responsibility anymore and it helps to have as much knowledge as possible about what to look for because good luck in proving the defect was there when you bought it.