[Hifred]

Retirement day came, we sold our home, packed up a POD which is now in storage and headed toward the Villages. We are renting and have been looking at homes. While renting we have enjoyed all the activities which are great and met lots of wonderful people. We entered into a sales agreement on a preowned home. I have a cautionary note from my experience that I would like to share with anyone who has not had the experience of purchasing a preowned home in the Villages.

Caution 1 – When you are seriously looking to purchase, ask your sales agent for a copy of the sales agreement and sit down with an attorney and see if the terms of the contract are agreeable. What I learned from a manager at TV only after we signed a sales contract is that on pre-owned home sales contracts the terms of the contract are all negotiable. What I found was although our agent was friendly and personable he did not represent our best interest. When we went to buy a pre-owned home I wanted a 15 day inspection period. He said that in TV they do a 10 day inspection period. Because of the large amount of home sales in TV it is hard to get one of the 3 top home inspectors Harwood, DeAngelo or Comer within that time period. There are other home inspectors and The Villages provides a list of home inspectors you can use. However, our experience was problematic. We hired a recommended home inspector; he agreed to meet us on site with our agent who was to open the home. He did his inspection and provided a very limited report but rather then send it directly to me he sent it to the Villages POH which in turn puts the report in a file that can be viewed by the seller’s agent and made it available to the seller which is detrimental to our bargaining process because his recommendations were very limited. My agent then sent me the report. So the report was viewable to others before I had the opportunity to review and approve its disclosure to the sellers. This way of operating seems to be an ethical violation at the least because I am the client and I am the one paying for the report. If you engage a home inspector make sure it is agreed to and understood that the report should go directly to you to review and approve before it is sent to the Villages POH and is visible to the sellers and their agent. I did speak to a sales manager about their process and she said that this procedure is in place to protect the buyer because there time line is tight (10 days) and if the report is not turned over quickly (within 10 days) then the buyers might lose their opportunity to have the action items fixed at all. I did hire another inspector (not one on TV’s list) who found a second crack in the foundation. The recommended inspector identified one crack in the foundation.

Caution 2

TV Sales Agreement states the seller is responsible to fix structural issues (up to 1.5% of the purchase cost) but not cosmetic issues. The Villages contract defines cosmetic conditions differently than I would. But they spell out their definition to mean items that do not affect the working condition which includes by their wording in the contract fogged windows, including windows with broken seals, caulking, improperly working sprinkler heads, minor cracks in walls, driveways, sidewalks, pools decks, garage and patio floors, cracked roof tile, curling or worn shingles, torn or missing screens in windows, pools, patio or garage screens. To me screens have a function and impact the use of house but they don’t see it that way. If you are buying a pre-owned home you can amend this however, your sales agent may discourage you from doing so. Ours did to the point that we thought it wasn’t allowed but the sales manager said on a pre-owned home any terms agreed to on the contract are between the buyer and the seller. So had I not spoke to the manager I would never have realized adjustments can be made to the sales agreement.

Caution 3

When you look at a home, you will not have an inspection report with you. Make a list and try to check for cosmetic conditions before you make an offer. We made an offer predicated on thinking that items in the inspection report would be fixed by the seller and as such made a higher offer than we would have had we understood this concept. But given the standard Villages sales agreement those things are not required to be fixed. If you look at a home with an agent for a few minutes, like it and then make an offer without examining caulking, screens, windows, cracks, over hanging branches then you may be offering more than you should because after purchase you will likely want to fix those items. This is especially true if you are a cash buyer because when financing lenders may not provide the mortgage if certain repairs are not made. The way TV sales agreements are written the buyer is at a disadvantage because once you write your offer the negotiating aspect after the sales agreement is accepted is practically gone. I say practically because the seller does have an obligation to fix up to 1.5% of the sales cost of structural items. If the value of the repairs exceeds 1.5% then there can be further negotiations.

I hope this will help anyone who is considering purchasing a pre-owned home in the Villages.