You are correct for the inspection, furthermore the contract of selling the house is the issue. Nothing was " AS IS" The contract states a septic system. According to the attorney at the closing this means a leach and septic system, not other( which is a choice).I feel the contract was a false declaration.A paper was presented to me to sign for as is? Never signed. This should have been a red flag that their were isues. proof is the contract of sale. It is in black and white and signed. I also have receipts, took photos of the situation, with no leach and installation of the leach.
We recently purchased a home, the contract stated septic system, do to our suprise this country manor had no leach field. The seller basically lied. The closing attorney recommended holding all receipt of our expenses to correct the situation. Isn’t this a breach of contract? The attorney is telling me to take it to small claims court. I did my job, the seller lied, the broker is pointing the finger at the seller, and the inspector seems to not be liable either. Please help, I have incurred over $3000.00 in bills and the seller is not willing to reimburse me for installation of the leach field.
Posted by Natalie-VA on August 22, 2008 at 11:07:48:
I think most attorneys aren’t going to be real interested in helping you pursue $3,000. It’s just not worth their time. The closing attorney probably gave you good advice to take it to small claims court. That shouldn’t cost you much.
Posted by John Merchant on August 21, 2008 at 13:58:37:
So have you closed on the purchase or not?
If so it’s probably too late to do anything but sue the S for damages for his fraud.
This is why DIY on RE, without the buyer having the needed knowledge or experience to know about such things is so very dangerous.
An experienced buyer’s RE agent would have made sure what S had and was selling, the condition and all about his property and would have been well worth the few bucks you’d have paid that agent.
Funny… I did my job by getting the mortgage. The RE agents claims they can only go by what the seller tells them. This property was inspected and apraised( apparently useless); RE attorney involved feels this is turning into a litigation and should retain him?
It amazes me that none of the parties involved can be held accountable other than me to fork out more $ on something that s/b included as originally stated in the contract. Yes the purchased was completed on 3/31/08 and problems with septic reported imediately on 4/5. We have been going back and forth since. What is the time limit? I so thank you for your time and feedback. This is a mess.-helena
You need to understand what the jobs of these people are before you can justify an accusation of missing something that a professional should have examined. Home Inspectors generally only deal with the building itself. Appraisers job is to determine the dollar value, not to ensure the house’s systems are working.
Agents never do inspections because they are not qualified to find the kind of things like what you describe.
Appraisers go by public records and an examination of the building. If public records say there is a septic system then they assume its there. They job is to determine dollar value not verify that everything is working.
I have never had either an inspector nor appraiser try and determine if the external hook ups worked beyond flushing the toilet and making sure the sinks drained when filled with water.
Is this a new built house or an older building. If its new built, does your state have a warranty period?
If its an older house, then I wonder how the sellers ever lived in a place with essentially no sewage disposal. I also wonder how a house could get a certificate of occupancy without working sewage systems. You may also want to check with the city or county and see what plans were filed and which permits got pulled on the house. For a septic system a city inspector usually has to sign off on it.
That is about all you can do yourself, after you gather the info, then go to an attorney and lay out the case (its better than paying the attorney to do the legwork just to tell you there is not enough proof for a solid case).
One more question - did the seller live in the house? If they did, then this is one of those things they could not help but know about when the sh—t came up through the bathtub drain.
I guess I didn’t. I know the electric was inspected, and exterior painting had to be done before the lone was approved.the bank got the appraisel. the house was in fact occupied by the seller at the time of purchase. I know they purchased this house in 2000. this house is old. Maybe the county would have permit information? Simply, they lied. Septic system is a leach and tank. We discovered a tank in the ground connected by a pipe to an old dry well( dirt hole lined with bolders). Not a legal set up even though the sellers stated otherwise. We wondered the same of disposal. Scared enough we had the water tested for bacteria. We have done a tremendous amount of work here in a short time and love this house. i am just hopeful that I can at least hold them responsible for the leach field installation.
It matters because in my parent’s subdivision in CT where houses were built in the 1950s, a septic tank and leach field are the norm. In fact a lot of 1950s and prior homes in the northeast were build this way. The septic tank has to be pumped out every couple of years. This was the normal way houses were built at the time.
As to it being legal. It it unconstitutional for the government to demand you bring your property up to date with the latest code upgrades (the term is: ex post facto, which means after the fact) unless you do work on that part of the property or that system. If you have an original system, which it sounds like you do, then you have to apply the code at the time the house was built to determine if it was not done legally. If you go back far enough, there were no such things as building codes, which means no matter how it was built, it was legal. Once legal always legal until the owner changes something. Then most code upgrades are restricted to the thing being changed.
For example, I had a friend who lived in a large house in Greenwich CT. The central part of the house was built in the early 1800s. The ceiling height was 6’ (I could not stand straight up). At the time that part of the house was built, there were no codes so the current requirement of 7’ ceilings could not be enforced retroactively.
The founding fathers did this because a government could cause you to tear down your house (or whatever) just by changing the code after you built in such a way as to make tearing down and rebuilding the only practical answer. This would have allowed people in control of government to use laws to punish their opponents by tailoring a code changes to just affect the one person. For example requiring a 7’ ceiling in a 2 story house once it had been built with a 6’ one would virtually require the house be torn down. Now the rest of the house had 7’ ceilings, but those parts were added after and subject to the code at the time those parts were built.
A question about your water supply. It sounds like you have well water. What is the distance from the leach field to the well and do you know which direction the ground water flows in.
To be safe, you may want to install a filtration system on the house side of the well pump since even without sewage, there are plenty of naturally occurring minerals in ground water you probably don’t want in too high of a concentration.
The only way you can hold the seller responsible for the leach field installation is if they installed it. It sounds very unlikely that they did.
> It it unconstitutional for the government to demand you bring your property up to date with the latest code upgrades (the term is: ex post facto, which means after the fact) unless you do work on that part of the property or that system. If you have an original system, which it sounds like you do, then you have to apply the code at the time the house was built to determine if it was not done legally. If you go back far enough, there were no such things as building codes, which means no matter how it was built, it was legal. Once legal always legal until the owner changes something.
Point understood. If you declare on the specs of the contract that a septic system exists. The Seller point blank told us that there is a leach and septic. to our discovery there is a tank and a hole. this house was built in 1820. the seller purchased it in 2000 and the house has changed hands several times before that. How can you legally sell a home that is not up to code in 2008, and declare it as such on the specs of the home?
Under the “grandfathered” rule,
(1) if the house passed the building code inspection in 1820 when it was built (As Rich said, I doubt if there was any inspection back then),
(2) OR if the house passed the building code inspection when “a tank and a hole” was built,
(3) AND there have been no major modification to the “tank and a hole” system since it was built,
THEN it is still LEGAL NOW, even though it may not meet the standard of the 2008 building code, AND REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY TIMES THE HOUSE CHANGED HANDS.
Under the “grandfathered” rule,
(1) if the house passed the building code inspection in 1820 when it was built (As Rich said, I doubt if there was any inspection back then),
(2) OR if the house passed the building code inspection when “a tank and a hole” was built,
(3) AND there have been no major modification to the “tank and a hole” system since it was built,
THEN it is still LEGAL NOW, even though it may not meet the standard of the 2008 building code.
Generally speaking, ONE CAN LEGALLY SELL A HOME which violates any old or new building codes. It is called “SELLING A HOME AS IS.” A buyer just needs to consent, at the time of closing, to the fact that there may be a problem in the house that may not be compatible with the old or current building codes , (and that the buyer will not sue the seller for them after he/she purchased the home.)
In your case, the legal issue is not the house nor the building codes. The legal case is whether the seller violated the particular contract the seller and the buyer (you) engaged in. Whether the seller promised something to you, and whether he/she performed/delivered them accordingly.
If the seller did not put them in writing that he/she guarantees that there’s a “leach and septic” system with the house, it is his words against your words in the court. You have to be able to prove that he promised you something (the “leach and septic” system) and he didn’t deliver his words to the facts.