Help! Need to sell Grandmother's Probate property that has foundation issues

[Catrina Alexander]

Hello everyone,

I'm in need of some help. Since I'm a Realtor, everyone in my family's relying on me to do a good job. Here's the situation....

My Grandmother died without a will Dec '09. I prepared a gift of deed before her death between grandmother and my mom where my mom was suppose to deed over the entire property to grandmother. About a month ago, I found out that grandmother only had 1/2 interest in the property...I created and filed the wrong document! Ugh! To correct the problem, I was told by a probate attorney's assistant (because of my prior experience as a legal secretary) that I should prepare a small estate affidavit, having the document signed, notarized by all siblings and two witnesses. This has been done.

I had an investor to come out to see if he'd purchase the 960 sf house that's in the hood. I told him that the house had foundation issues...house is split in half from left side to right side of home because of my mentally unstable aunt who failed to water during the drought in Houston 2011. I also told him that the ARV would be $35k and that the family would like to sell the house for a price of $18k+. He agreed and prepared the contract for $17k after viewing.

A week or so went by and he had his foundation guy to come out and inspect the house. The foundation guy told him to walk away because (he said) the foundation repair would cost $7k instead of the $3-4k he initially quoted me/the family. He then told me because of this, he's going to have to reduce the price by $4k, to go back to the family and tell them of the price reduction and see if they're still interested. He also stated that since my Aunt had one of the local wholesaler to view (he had other investors to view) but according to him no one was interested. If the family wouldn't go for the reduction in price, he'll have to walk away...

Lastly, there's $4k in outstanding taxes that my Aunt didn't pay that are past due as well.

What shall I/we do?