Flood issues right before closing

[Dakota Rice]

I’m two days from closing on my first rental property and I just found out that the property’s basement flooded for the second time in the last week. The property is an over/under duplex, and we have had excessive amounts of rain in the last two weeks. They do have a sump pump installed yet there was enough water damage to ruin the carpet the first time, and the brand new carpet is now under water. My question is whither or not this is a deal I should still pursue? According to the owner the house hasn’t had issues with water getting into the basement in the last 8 years. It isn’t in a flood zone and I’m not sure how trusting to be that I won’t have issues with flooding in the future.

[Pat L.]

We just had the same leak occur at the poured wall/cement flooring joint (built 1978). Thankfully it is within 3 ft of the sump pump but its literally flowing in. It's a quick $1000 fix using our basement water proofing guys.

We pump well away from the perimeter using lateral drains as many sump pumps just pushing water to the surface near the wall & it just heads straight down. We also have 2 sump pumps in the same pit for backup.

In your case I would definitely be inclined to walk away for all the above reasons or get a $10k reduction in price to compensate for the required fix.