All Forum Posts by: Ashley Wolfe

thank you Joel, great perspective.

No, the repair addendum is not that detailed and it doesn't state that the work should be done by a professional.  He supplied us with a bid from a third party roofer which detailed the entire SOW for the roof then he just did it himself.

I've emailed the city about his building permits for roof, foundation, and electrical. 

Even if we don't want the house, should we still deliver Specific Performance to him for the work just to cover our bases and to play hardball in a way?

To add a bit more detail to this situation, the seller's agent sent us a counter to the extension of the closing date we applied for on Thursday, Feb 18th (original closing date) because we hadn't gotten final loan approval.  We received the counter to the extension with a paragraph stating we had until 5pm on Saturday to move forward or not.  And if we didn't, seller could keep earnest money.  At the same time but in a separate email, the seller delivered Specific Performance to us.  So, its almost like he may have hedged the bet on us walking away because he KNEW the work was half-*** and was hoping we wouldn't get the property re-inspected.  That's my assumption anyway.

I'm going to see where it gets us to talk to the city's building permits department.  That may be a great option for us.

After all the shoddy work the seller has done, we wouldn't want to give him our money for this house.

Is Specific Performance from a seller to a buyer kinda like saying "get a move on and buy our house?"

The seller is performing Specific Performance on us... Why?

if I had to estimate the repair work costs, it would be anywhere from $7000-$10000 if done by a licensed, insured professional.  Included in that is a brand new roof, foundation and electrical work.

seller supplied a bid from a roofing company, I had a roofer give me a bid.  Seller decided to do the work himself and left out almost all the detail that was furnished in the original bid. :/

The earnest money amount is $1000

Ok, the long and short of it is this:

My husband and I were under contract for a SFH. During that time we submitted a repair addendum and the seller agreed to it in full.

In the meantime, we were getting our loan finalized.  The seller said he would not start repairs until our loan was approved.  We had to file for an extension on the closing date because we defaulted on getting all documentation to our lender.  On Friday, Feb 19th, the seller said that all repairs were completed, which we thought was odd since we didn't get our loan approved by the original closing date of Th, Feb 18th.  So this was a short time of getting lots of repairs done (including a brand new roof).  When the seller countered our extension, he asked us to make a decision by 5pm on Saturday, Feb 20th.  We were fine with that pending the results of our re-inspection.

We had the property re-inspected at 11am on Saturday, Feb 20th, specifically for the repair addendum items.  Roughly 50% of the repairs were done, at best.  This includes the roof he said he would replace but only about 25% of the work was done.  Therefore, we did not respond to the seller by 5pm on Feb 20th deadline.  Instead, we sent a termination and release of earnest money back to us.  If we trusted the seller to make the repairs correctly the first time and he didn't, shame on him.  We are not going to trust him to make the repairs a second time, then pay for a THIRD inspection. 

Today, the seller's agent is saying the seller is threatening legal action if we don't release the earnest money to the seller and pay any other possible damages because we aren't moving forward on buying the house.

I feel very confident that anyone could see how the seller didn't hold up his end of the repair addendum and we have an inspection report to prove it.  Its not just one thing, its numerous and glaringly obvious things that the seller perhaps hoped we would not catch.

However, I'll be the first to admit that my husband and I didn't have 100% of our documentation in to our lender by the closing date (we were about 99% complete).  BUT!  If the seller had fixed everything he promised to fix on the legally binding repair addendum with 100% accuracy and code compliance, we would have said yes in a heartbeat and we would be closing this week.

We have not gotten a letter from an attorney.  But I could see a judge saying something like, "Both of you defaulted.  You split the earnest money."  Then we will be going through a bunch of stress for nothing, for pride.

But, based on the information and perspective you may be able to provide, I may be able to see it in a different way that I have no idea about. 

This weekend I was at peace losing the earnest money and washing my hands of it.  My husband says, "F that S!  We're not giving our money to a seller who won't hold up his end of the deal."

I realize this was more "long" than "short" but thanks for reading all the way to the end!  I can't wait to hear what you all have to say.

Hey BP friends,

In the next week, we are closing on our first little rental house.  Its a 2/1, 1024 sq ft.  Clearly it was a flip because we had to negotiate some really big repairs to make the deal work.  Anyhoo, all the cosmetics are taken care of.  All we need to do is some simple things (caulk around the fixtures in restroom, cleaning windows, capping gas lines into rooms, installing garbage disposal, etc) for it to truly be move-in ready and a good representation of our product we offer to our residents.

I've read books on how to market and fill properties but what I'm really most concerned about is the learning curve my husband and I have about the legalities of landlording.

I'm a Lifestyles Unlimited member so I have access to some documents that landlords use but I've got some questions about applicants and how to handle them legally.

We have our list of criteria below.  Can you weigh in on if this is realistic? (Rental comps have been done for the rent rate.)

Rent: $875/month with a $875 deposit

Monthly Income requirement: $2625

Non-refundable pet deposit: $250

Pet Rent: $15/per pet (may be negotiable based on applicant's situation), Max of 2 pets, No dogs over 50 lb and no aggressive breeds (I wince because I have a pit bull myself and was an incredible tenant)

Application Fee: $35 (will run background check with NTN or any other suggested site)

No prior evictions, criminal history, felonies

Stable work history

References from past landlords

References from bosses/supervisors

Credit score of 675 or higher

No more than 4 adults over 18 years old living in the home

All members of household 18 years of age or older must apply separately and pay the application fee separately

Only complete and true applications will be considered

What are we missing here?  What do you suggest?  I feel like this is really getting real and I'm a little scared.  :/