City of Milwaukee owned properties

[Andrew J.]

To my fellow BPers, I wanted to reach out to see if anyone had some advice/feedback for my particular scenario:

3 weeks ago we received an accepted offer for a City of Milwaukee owned tax foreclosure. With our offer, we included a contractor bid detailing the work needed to bring the place up to code and habitable conditions (I referenced this in a previous post, in all reality this is a pretty "nice" city property) which helped us knock down the "asking price" significantly

My Realtor and I went to the property last week with the contractor we are working with (Zecheriah Evans who has been very helpful) to go over with a fine tooth comb the Scope of Work only to find out whoever "winterized" the property, or who was at the very least supposed to drain the water forgot to do so. What we now have is a completely compromised heating system (2 boilers, 1 for each unit) as well as plumbing supply lines and DWV. Long story short we are amending our purchase offer to 30K less than the existing accepted purchase price to accommodate new forced air heating and a new plumbing system My Realtor has called the city explaining the dilemma and the city seems on board with whatever we (buyer) want to do.

It is supposed to warm up to 36 later this week and my concern is that we don't know where all of the leaks in the plumbing might be...and when it warms up who knows what will happen. I am tempted to go in there Wednesday with a sawzall and cut lines in the basement to at least give the water somewhere to drain (path of least resistance = large missing section of pipe to be cut by me, water drains downhill, etc).

I am simply wondering what my options are with regards to this water problem...if water starts flowing in the walls odds are the house will become totally trashed any beyond any repairs I am willing to make.

There are 13 old cast iron radiators in the property as well...all of which have blown.

Any advice is always appreciated!