No Septic, No Sewer? Where Does the Poop Go?

I recently had the opportunity to buy a fixer property, and with any property, I requested the seller's disclosure form. The owner was a builder that had done a little work but just needed to get the house sold. Nothing seems out of the ordinary other than what I knew about when inspecting the home. We went about the closing proceedings but before we closed I call the city to request transfer of the name on the electricity, sewer, gas, etc... the odd thing was that the city said the property was not on city sewer. I said it had to be. They said they had no record of that property address being on city sewer. This was very odd because not only had the sellers informed me it was, the rest of the houses in the area were on city sewer. 

I went back to the builder and explained my findings, and he said he must be on city sewer. I asked if he had been paying it and he wasn't sure. After further examination, sewer had not been on his bill all these years. He had owned the home for about five years after he purchased it from a woman that lost her husband and began hoarding. At this point, there was no reason to track down the previous owner. 

I got to thinking... Maybe back in the 70s when the house was built, some good ol' boys were sitting around drinking beer and decided that it would be stupidly easy to just T off the neighbor's line and connect to their sewer... a 'screw the government' kind of thing. I know, I was going a little extreme, but what else could it mean? If he bought the house with a septic, he should have known at that time, and I would think it should have been pumped in the mean time. 

So what were we going to do? Putting in city sewer would cost thousands, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go that route. And we were closing in just days.

So, we got everyone out there at the house with a plumber that had a scope and down the pipes we went. 

Guess what?

SEPTIC....  Now, what? Well, the homeowner apologized, and we scheduled a pumping and service right away. Things changed a bit on the contract but all in all, the deal closed on my new investment WITH a septic tank.

Deals are funny, and you never know what you're going to get. Every deal is different and unique. BUT had I not called the city before closing, I would have been stuck with the issue myself. It certainly pays to do your due diligence ahead of time. Of course, it's hard to know what to ask, especially since we have to trust the seller to some degree.

[Related Post: The Difference when Selling to an Investor VS. With an Agent]