Member- 78h2o
- 8 years ago
- Wedding: October 2011
Some of you may have followed my home buying experience so far…
Initial negotiations:
We offered 390k + 12k in closing for a house listed at 400k, with an addendum stating that the roofing and siding would be replaced, as promised. House had been on the market for 5 or 6 months, and had had some hail damage from a recent storm (thus the roof/siding issue).
The sellers countered at 395k with 12k closing help, but said they weren’t ready to sign because they were waiting for the insurance company to confirm the roof/siding replacement. (We were ready to accept this, but did not tell them so).
Roof and siding replacement were confirmed, but at that point sellers came back stating they wanted 400k w/ 12k in closing help.
We offered 392.5k w/ 12k in clsoing.
They countered at 400k w/ 12k in closing.
We raised our offer to 397.5k w/12k closing and they rejected it.
At that point the realtors dropped their commisson to make up the rest and we agreed on us paying 397.5k with 12k closing help.
(House ended up appraising for 400k)
Post-inspection negotiations:
Sellers were home when we had the inspection done. DH asked Mr. Seller if the underground pipe from the house to the water main was made of polybutylene. Seller said yes – it’s been on our to-do list to replace, but we never got to it. Polybutylene pipe has a history of faiture and leaks associated with it, and has been the subject of class action lawsuits… basically, its defective material that works fine until it busts, and there’s no telling when that’s going to happen. It’s best to replace it proactively (so as to avoid major damage), as we had done in our own townhouse.
The rest of the inspection turned up some minor things, none of them too big of a concern.
Two days later we got word the house had failed the radon inspection. Our contract already stated that if radon was found, sellers would be responsible for remediation.
So we wrote an addendum asking for the pipe to be replaced (~2k cost) and the radon to be remediated… we said we’d take care of the rest ourselves.
The sellers came back and said they’d do the radon, but not the pipe.
Our realtor emailed us the addendum to sign and said we couldn’t make them fix the pipe because it wasn’t actively leaking, so basically we had no choice but to sign.
I called her up and said, no, tell the sellers we’re not paying for it. We fixed it in our house because we know it’s defective. They knew about it and should have disclosed it or should be willing to fix it. Tell them we will walk if they don’t fix it. My husband got nervous we’d lose the house and at this point joined the phone conversation and said that we at least wanted them to work with us on it. Our realtor told me that we were putting the sellers in a jam as they’d already bought a new house and were in the process of packing (which I knew)… I basically said, too bad…
She called later that night and said they were getting estimates and wanted to work things out with us.
That was Friday. We finally got word today that the estimates ranged from 1-2k and they were willing to credit us 2k at closing to fix the pipe. I am happy with this, but my DH feels bad and is making me feel guilty!
Do you think all this sounds fair??
Sorry for writing a book – kudos if you got this far!
