Quote:
Originally Posted by Marathon Man
This has been mentioned nunerous times on this forum. But, what has never been mentioned is a time when this caused a problem for a home buyer.
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Since they're not Realtors or belong to the board of Realtors in their county, I don't think they are held to the same ethics as a Realtor is obligated. They are salesman, just like a car salesman but have training in real estate transactions.
On my block in 2012 a fairly new CYV owned by snowbirds had a leak in the foundation. When the owners returned they found about 3" of water in the M/BA and M/BR. They called the warranty department and the home was less than a year old. They sent out a crew who removed all the carpeting and vinyl, the cabinets, the plumbing fixtures, and the drywall from 3' above the floor and the wood baseboards and trim. They ran high speed heaters into the rooms for about 3 days until the moisture was gone.
Over the next 3 weeks they jack-hammered into the foundation, fixed the plumbing, patched the slab and replaced everything like new. The owners within a couple of months put the home on the market with The Villages real estate. The home sold right away and the day of the closing the new owners from Canada were standing in the driveway looking at what they just bought, when another neighbor came up to them and said, didn't the leak in the foundation cause you any concern. Well they had never been told about this problem. They got a lawyer and was eventually told that because the home was fixed by the warranty department, it wasn't necessary to be disclosed. I would believe that Licensed Realtor would be required to inform buyers of this defect.
If this wasn't enough, these new owners immediately put the home back on the market and it sold right away. Once again the new owners were in the driveway when that same neighbor asked them if they knew about the foundation leak. Fortunately these people were not as panicky and lived in the home for three years before reselling. The one thing that did happen was the price of the villa increased quickly. It originally sold new furnished in 2011 for $163K, it resold a year later for $195K and resold 3 years latter for $213K and sold again last year for $222K and the new owner, a widow, spent almost $50K gutting the inside and installing new top of the line everything, mostly using Doc's Restorations and had workers there almost everyday for ten months. This time, no one told him about the past and I hope he lives there for many years.
Here's the home and there is no way just by looking at he home inside or out, that anything had happened.
