All Forum Posts by: Archer Stone

I have seen the mold in her apartment, it is black mold. 

Her four-year-old son is coughing and says his stomach and throat hurt. They had to move to a hotel.

The neighbors who had to move to a hotel (the lady and her son) are tenants, renting from the condo's owner. That condo owner sent his handyman yesterday to rip out the moldy drywall and spray bleach... but he did not rip out the carpets, which are also full of mold. Now I believe this irresponsible condo owner will put our apartment (along with other neighbors apartments) at risk, because he's not willing to rip up the carpets. Is there any recourse I have against THIS guy?

 The seller’s agent literally said, in writing: “it’s just on the surface it’s not a problem.” When I said on the phone “it’s probably on the wall or in the neighbors apartment” they said “no, it’s not, it was just on the surface and it’s gone now.”

5 days after moving in we find out that the neighbors apt is full of mold. The neighbor said our seller knew about it and what the seller told us was a “bald faced lie.”

That’s a direct quote from the neighbor.

The seller lied, in writing. Multiple times. We could probably get neighbors to back that up.

We bought a condo and moved in 5 days ago. Me, my wife, and 1yr old daughter

Inspector had found a small amount of mold under the sink in the inspection. Less than two square feet. Sent it to a lab and it tested as “penicillium,” not dangerous.

The seller said “it’s just on the surface” and wiped it away with bleach.

I insisted several times that we should cut into the walls to check, but the sellers kept saying it just was a tiny bit of mold so unnecessary. I checked with the mold lab and they said “the seller is probably right, its just a small amount and it’s not the dangerous kind, it’s not worth the trouble.”

The broker (supposed to be loyal to both sides and truthful and honest) sent us an email saying basically “it’s not a problem, we are not cutting the wall.”

Well, we negotiated a “buyers credit” for $1500, closed the deal and moved in last week. 

Today I met the neighbor who shares that bathroom wall with us. Apparently she’s been staying in a hotel for weeks because it’s not livable in her apartment because of health problems from black mold!! She said it was too expensive for her to fix, so they’re just gonna clean the bare minimum and it’s gonna keep coming back

Apparently the backstory is: a few years ago an upstairs neighbor (now long gone) had a fight with the HOA, so they turned on the taps and stuffed tshirts in the sinks to flood the apartment and caused water & mold damage in the downstairs apartments.

What the actual F

We have a baby in here and we spent 90% of our savings to buy this condo, all cash. We have very little savings at this point

What would you do? Can we sue the seller or broker to cover costs of fixing it? I have emails from the broker with strong implications saying that the sellers said this is not a problem and it’s just a surface thing and it’s not in the walls.

Update on what happened, in case anyone's interested:

The co-op owner TOLD us that he fixed the issues, and had us drive down all the way from NY to FL. When we walked through, we saw that the problems were NOT actually fixed. We are now spending a lot of money on AirBnBs because of this and consider ourselves to be the damaged party. We told the seller this was not acceptable, and finally signed a "cancelation and release" and received our deposit back.

Crazy times. Stressful, not fun, but I'm glad we were able to get out of it without too much damage.

In the meantime, we had canceled our offer on the house (because we were worried we couldn't get out of the co-op deal), and now the house is gone as well.

We have $150k in cash, but no access to mortgage/financing. 

If anyone knows a decent place we can get in St Pete (ideally 2br), please let me know!

thank you for your thoughts on this.

I should mention: the apartment deal is for $150,000. I made them an all cash offer and sent proof of funds. So they do know that I have the money to buy it. Do you think this makes a difference in the likelihood that they will sue?

Thank you for your replies!

We have the money to close NOW... but if we buy the house, then no, we will NOT have the money to buy the apartment as well.

What would happen if we did that... if we bought the house, and then we simply did not have the money to buy the apartment?

If we tell them we don't have the money anymore... will they still try to sue us to buy the apartment? And what would happen if they did?

I'm moving to Florida with my wife & baby daughter. 

The market has been crazy. We really wanted a HOUSE with a backyard, but couldn't find one in our price range, so we made an offer on an APARTMENT instead.

Our offer got accepted. We did our inspection (which went fine). We waited several weeks for HOA approval. And today we finally got the approval! The tenant in the apartment is packing up to leave, and the closing is supposed to be in 6 days from today!

PLOT TWIST: TODAY we finally found a HOUSE, with a backyard, exactly where we want to be, next to a beautiful park with a lake and a playground for the baby! OMG.

The house is significantly better for our family and also it's a much better investment than the apartment. We just put an offer on the house and the seller said he will sign it tomorrow!!!

I want to pull out of the apartment deal and take the house instead, but I'm afraid the apartment seller will be angry and sue us.

I am assuming that the apartment seller (and his broker) will be PISSED that we wasted like 3 weeks of their time, they even fixed a bunch of little problems in the apartment, the tenant is moving out (though I think she will probably stay if we tell them that we're pulling out), etc. I know they're entitled to keep our $5,000 deposit, and I'm OK with that... as long as they don't SUE US and try to FORCE US to buy the apartment, when we already are buying the house.

Can they do that??? Would they do that??? What happens if we buy the house and they try to force us to buy the apartment?

Here's the language in the accepted offer (for the apartment, from which we want to pull out):