All Forum Posts by: Robert Steele

I always "owe" the IRS money. I "owed" the IRS $14K this year. This is the most I have "owed" them. It was nice using "their" $14K to invest during the course of the year. I have not gotten a penalty yet.

Unknown.

The buyers Realtor.

My wife only represented me.

We did. They went quiet for a while. Got the termites treated and are asking us to pay or else.

All excellent points Joel. Especially about finding the best solution, not necessarily being right. To that end we have decided to pay them the money they want with the proviso that they sign the waiver and we never hear from them again.

Thanks

Same here. My last four offers have been outbid and they were not low balls. It seems a lot hard to pick up properties these days than it was when there wasn't a ton of inventory and loans were 5% down. I can only assume that it is newbie investors flooding the market - probably from out of state.

A similar problem recently happened to my broker. What you have to understand is that the bank asset managers hire their own people to do work on the property (such as winterize). The listing broker co-ordinates with the asset manager. The asset managers have many REOs on their plate it is not uncommon for things to get screwed up.

What happened in my case was the listing broker asked the asset manager to get the house de-winterized for inspection and gave a significant lead time). It was never done so the listing broker paid the inspector to de-winterize it and then re-winterize it after he had completed his inspection (to keep the ball rolling and met the close date).

Well then the company that works for the asset manager came out and de-winterized it. Not only were they woefully late but they did not notify anyone so the property sat there during a cold snap and busted pipes, water damage and mold ensued. Luckily the buyers discovered all this 2 days before closing and backed out.

Now ask yourself, in this case was the listing broker at fault?

I got a reply back from a RE lawyer and here's what he said:

The sales contract doesn’t “die†exactly, but it is merged into the closing documents. You, the seller, makes a representation as to property condition in paragraph 7.B. Paragraph 19 says that those representations will be true as of the Closing Date. Paragraph 9.D. states all representations will survive closing. So contract obligations are merged into the closing documents (don't survive the closing). Misrepresentations do. Since the buyer knew of the defect, then bought anyway, he will have a difficult time prevailing in a law suit. Your risk is always there, though. Especially if the buyer has a friend that's a lawyer.

I am not sure what Buyer A got. Buyer B is telling me this. Apparently the WDI company is willing to tell B over the phone but not release documentation. Wife did not notice this damage until after Buyer A backed out. I was not made aware.

Correct.

Buyer B got their own inspection which stated previous termite damage in both locations (including the one in question). I do not know that they have Buyer A's inspection report - I am assuming they are referring to the WDI given verbally over the phone.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I think the Buyer had every opportunity to do their own due diligence and order a WDI after their general inspection found termite damage. However that said, given the appearance of impropriety and the fact that my wife is a Broker it is entirely possible that if this goes to court they will side with the poor innocent buyer as apposed to the greedy conniving Broker's husband/Landlord. I will try offering them $500 to go away.

My wife did not see the report. She saw the damage which looked to her like water damage. She is not qualified to determine the presence of wood destroying insects.

So we asked them to provide us with the WDI they claim says their were active termites. They cannot produce it as the company that did the inspection wont release it to them as they did not pay for it.

Yes. As I said, they got a copy of the inspection from the previous buyer who backed out. It included a WDI report which states that the termites were active at the time.

Their inspection report states previous termite damage in the same location.

They are asking us to pay for a full treatment with an operator of their choosing ~$2K.

They are assuming I knew and covered it up. I did not. But I can see how it could be construed that way and I can see how they would be upset. However it seems to me that they knew as much as I did as their inspection showed termite damage and they asked us to treat it prior to close.

Yes that is a little vague. By "previous buyer" I mean the people who got my property under contract prior to the buyers in question. When they backed out they would not tell us why. We wanted to negotiate the price lower but they were not interested. We assumed that they just got cold feet or buyers remorse.

I agree that if their inspector did not find the termite damage that it would be unreasonable to assume that I would. Who the hell knows - it may not even be termite damage and they are just thinking it is.

They are not claiming damages or asking for money at this time. I am willing to call their bluff but the sales contract stated that we do mediation. However I thought that was only during the purchase period not forever after?

Yeah it sounds like they may just be fishing for more cash.

I sold a house several months ago and now the buyer is getting on my *** about not disclosing that the property had termite damage. I owned the house for less than a year and did not live in it. I could not disclose what I did not know.

They say;
1) They have the inspection report from the previous buyer who backed out during the inspection period and it shows a photo of the termite damage inside the bathroom vanity.
2) After that the damage had been covered up.

I say;
1) I did not see this inspection report. The first buyers did not show it to me.
2) I never saw the termite damage either. My wife did but thought it was wood rot from water damage. After the first buyer fell through we did a second round of repairs and this was repaired with new plywood and painted.

The real kicker is that other termite damage in the master bedroom did come up on their inspection report because they told us so in writing and asked us to pay for a termite treatment which we refused.

Now they want to go to mediation and I don't want to waste the $500 mediation cost plus lawyer fees on what seems like a frivolous issue.

What do you guys think?