The Benefit of a Home Inspection

[Nick Rutkowski]

PLEASE LEARN FROM MY MISATKE! I just bought my second multifamily house last Monday. Yippie! My girlfriend and I were happy, we’re moving up the ladder - all smiles. We bring our contractor through and he’s frowning the whole way through. We take him to the basement and we discover we need a foundation all replaced. Oops, we overlooked that wall. That’s okay, that was only all of my rehab budget anyways. In NY State it’s customary to have a property condition disclosure filled out. The seller was so confident in his answers about the condition of the house. But marked the structural condition “unknown”, which I overlooked. (And I’m a Real Estate Agent which makes this extra bad). Right now my girlfriend and I are 0/2. I call my lawyer up and explain the situation. He says we can do something if the problem is apparent and its on the Home Inspection. Well the problem is apparent but we didnt get a Home Inspection. Huge mistake. So even if the seller knew about the foundation, we cant go after him. Lesson learned: Get a home inspection, even if we know everything wrong with the house. We’ll do it for legal reasons.