Little Lessons- Basement Filled With Water

[Thomas Eppolite]

And it was on the day I closed on my first SFH. My realtor called me on the day of closing to see if I wanted to do a final inspection. This is my first purchase, so I asked do you think I should? We had just been in the house two days earlier and I’m thinking it’s cold and raining sideways. Lets just sign some paperwork and be done. If you haven’t purchased anything yet it’s a long and arduous task. She replied yes I think you should at least walk through. OMG am I glad she said that!!!! Ok I said, I’ll meet you there. This whole week we had epic rain nonstop, Noah would have been proud. I show up at the property and both agents are there trying to figure out how to get in? The lock box on the front door with the key won’t work. They are starting to panic a little and making phone calls so I take off and tell them to call me when they figure it out. About an hr later she calls and says “well we’re in but there’s water in the basement”. Now I’m panicking, and I head back. So it turns out that the sellers mortgage company mistakenly foreclosed on the property, that’s why the key didn’t work. In this process they winterized the house and shut all of the power off. This included of course the sump pump and low and behold there 6” of water in the basement. ***What sense this makes from the banks perspective I’ll never understand. They could have destroyed a perfectly good house if it sat for any period of tIme*** So now I have a problem, half of the basement was finished. I have wet ruined carpet, drywall and a few other things to contend with. We all head to the title company for closing and of course I walk in and announce I’m not signing anything. After about an hr of phone calls from the sellers agent we did come to an agreement. The seller would have a contractor like Serve Pro dry it out, estimate damages and repair said damages up to a certain amount. Also money was placed in escrow not to be released until I signed off on the work. So after a really frustrating day I did sign the paperwork and bought the property. Ok so maybe this wasn’t a little lesson!!! Here are my takeaways and maybe it will help someone else....... 1. ALWAYS do a final walk through. I usually have good common sense. I hadn’t thought through what could happen in just the couple days since I had been their. 2. I was emotionally attached. I should have gotten more consessions at closing. I gave up control of the contractors and a cap on spending. Looking back I wish I had been able to pick my own contractor. This was another nightmare for another separate post. I did eventually throw them off my property. If the seller insisted on controlling the repairs I should have insisted on a higher cap. I didn’t get either. 3. If you have a basement/sump pump make sure it’s in good condition. I have added a battery backup to the system in case of a power outage. It should give me a day or so of run time. I’m even considering a second pump as a back if the first one fails. And I have a brand new generator also. Lmao 4. Have a lawyer available if possible. I felt a little confidence that a lawyer agreed with the terms of our agreement and gave her blessing. If I was on my own I could have messed that up also Full disclosure, I’m not a real estate investor yet. Most of this info is probably old news to the the seasoned professionals here. Hopefully some of this info will maybe help a new investor, but take it with a grain of salt. I could be wrong on some things. I have decided that I would like to contribute what I can to the community here before posting a bunch of questions. I have my reasons that will probably be another post pretty soon. Hope this is useful........