issues uncovered after the purchase of the house

Manchester, New Hampshire
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issues uncovered after the purchase of the house

Yulia Garvanovic
Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes

Hello, I recently purchased my new duplex. Of course, before purchasing the house, I invited a home inspector, and he did a pretty decent job. As a result, the seller had to fix some electrical, mold, and foundation issues.

However, one major issue  was overlooked by my home inspector: the seller had remodeled the kitchen and laid hardwood floor on top of the main furnace grid, which was originally located in the kitchen. When I turned the furnace for the first time, I realized that something was wrong: it sounded like an out-of-balance washing machine and it frequently turned off and on (every 1-5 minutes). A professional HVAC technician cleaned up the furnace and fix the furnace blower. However, he discovered the real issue - the furnace was overheating a lot since the hot air had nowhere to go. The HVAC team can open the kitchen floor and resolve the issue, but this will cost me a few hundreds of dollars.

My question is: can I make the seller pay for this since the issue was clearly caused by him?

(If it helps, the seller is an experienced real-estate agent and a house flipper. )

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Russell BrazilBusiness Member
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Real Estate Agent · Washington, D.C. · Member since 2012 · 17k+ posts · 30k+ votes
9y

Every house you buy for the rest of your life will have problems not discovered til after you close on it.  

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  • Brian Pulaski
    Flipper/Rehabber · Montgomery, NY · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    @Yulia Garvanovic you noted this was an existing hvac system, correct? Something that looks like it was there when the flipper did the house? Also you noted there are three floors over this return air. Did the flipper install 3 layers of flooring, or did a previous owner, or two do so? Playing devils advocate here...

    When did the flipper buy the house? If early 2017, maybe March/April, it is possible he never had the hvac system on, as the weather might not have called for it (no long periods of freezing). If he renovated over a floor with the return already covered (if there are truly 3 layers of floor over it, sounds like it has been covered for some time) he might not have ever known it wasn't an issue. It is possible that he simply never experienced the problem, and didn't cover over something that's wasn't already covered over.

    WIth that said, if there was shoddy siding work done, it's possible he is just cutting corners and passing bad work along to the new owner. There are usually two sides to the story however.

    2Reply
  • Yulia Garvanovic
    OP
    Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Steve Vaughan:

    I have a personal policy of not buying from flippers.  Seen it from others multiple times. Corners cut.  Shade covered.  No thanks for me.

    Thank you:) I think this will be my new policy from now on. I just bought this house because my unit was move-in-ready except for some minor things, the house was in a very decent shape compared to the others available on the market back then within the same price range, and there was already a great long-term tenant in the other unit. Plus each unit has 4 bedrooms, which is rare in our area. 

    Yes, they did cut corners in a bunch of places: some I just made peace with and left as it; the others I have had to fix (like poorly installed drain pipes and lines). Thank God they didn't do any major renovations except for installing new carpeting in my entire unit, replacing the roof, refinishing the hardwood floors, and installing new siding ))

    1Reply
  • Steve Vaughan
    Rental Property Investor · East Wenatchee, WA · Member since 2014 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    9y

    @Yulia Garvanovic I almost hope this guy doesn't do anything for you as to the covering of the air return (duh) or the siding.  For a few hundred bucks opening a return hole, you will get a lot of miles out of telling everyone you know how bad he sucks;)

    Thankfully your seller didn't do a deep rehab.  Who knows what else would have been hacked up.  I helped a buddy who bought a rental in my town from 3 hours away.  Tenant was calling with electrical issues.  He had to unfinish the bulk of his basement to re-do bad wiring.  He bought from a flipper as well.

    Not all are bad I'm sure, but I'd rather buy from a  long-time owner who hasn't updated anything.  With flippers, you're usually buying retail to boot!  

    Your problems are fixable and I don't fault you for buying the deal.  In 5 years these smalls won't matter and your balance sheet will thank you!

    0Reply
  • Yulia Garvanovic
    OP
    Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes
    9y
    0Reply
  • Brian Pulaski
    Flipper/Rehabber · Montgomery, NY · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    From that timeline, it is possible he never had the hvac system on and running and if the floors were already over the return, it's possible he didn't cover it himself, or know it was an issue.

    Again it is very possible (if there was other shoddy work) that he did pull one over on you. I hope for the mistake instead of him purposely doing bad work. Would hate for you to keep getting issue after issue with the house.

    0Reply
  • Brian Ploszay
    Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2009 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    Don't beat yourself up over this.   It also is not the fault of your inspector.

    You do your best, you inspect the house, but you never know everything until you own it for awhile.

    You can try to get money from the seller.  But if you did not have a warranty, there probably is no obligation from the seller.  Don't call any municipality to complain about this, because it is your house now.   You can complain about him on social media, but I don't recommend that either.   Mistakes are made, especially in construction and especially with house flippers.   As long as you can fix it under $500,  this is not a disaster.

    1Reply
  • Yulia Garvanovic
    OP
    Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Brian Pulaski:cutt

    From that timeline, it is possible he never had the hvac system on and running and if the floors were already over the return, it's possible he didn't cover it himself, or know it was an issue.

    Again it is very possible (if there was other shoddy work) that he did pull one over on you. I hope for the mistake instead of him purposely doing bad work. Would hate for you to keep getting issue after issue with the house.

    Thank you:) You are right: I should talk to the tenant from the other unit to find out when the other tenant was evicted. This should clarify the things. There was another issue of misrepresentation present, but, fortunately, it was spotted by the home inspector: several new electrical wall plates covered old electrical boxes. So when the inspector failed to plug  in his electrical tester, he saw that someone had definitely cut corners. When the seller saw that in the inspection report, he said he knew nothing about that issue and that must have been done by the previous owner, who also owned several rental units until he passed away. This topic of cutting corners is so interesting, I wonder if we could devote the whole section of this forum to it, with photos and descriptions. 

    0Reply
  • Garrett Diegel
    Rental Property Investor · NV · Member since 2014 · 241 posts · 85 votes
    9y

    Sounds to me like a pretty minor fix for a few hundred bucks. Get it done and move on to the next project.

    0Reply
  • Dan Schwartz
    Real Estate Investor · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2012 · 874 posts · 648 votes
    9y
    "I waited to purchase the house from January to April as the seller had to wait out several months to avoid paying the capital gains." Sounds like the flipper may also be mischaracterizing the intent of his purchase and sale in order to evade taxes.....
    0Reply
  • Max T.
    Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    9y

    just cut a hole in the floor and return duct and put a return cover on it. Easy!

    0Reply
  • Joe L.
    Concord, NH · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 16 votes
    9y
    Greetings from a fellow concordite!
    0Reply
  • Ned J.Pro Member
    Investor · Manteca, CA · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    9y

    I would contact the seller and point out the issue....as well as the inspector........and sternly request to be reimbursed...more so from the inspector, since I think more liability falls on them.....the inspectors I have worked with kick on the heat and a/c for 10-20 minutes and actually see how they work to cool/heat the house......be stern but polite and respectful. You may get lucky and have them pay for the fix..... worth a shot. I know its not much $$ but I don't let people off the hook that easy just because its not really that much $$

    But I wouldn't go past that....if they refuse, let it go, pay the cost and move on....hope that you don't find anything else

    I would never buy from a flipper...... a large % are all working just off profit margin... their desire to do good quality of work is usually very low.....good quality work costs $$ and that eat profits. They want to make is nice and shiny, but often what lurks below the surface is crap

    0Reply
  • Brian Pulaski
    Flipper/Rehabber · Montgomery, NY · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    @Ned J. I sold a house and the day of the inspection it wasn't hovering around 100 degrees. The boiler wouldn't kick on to "test the heat". The buyers had a stipulation that they needed to check that the heat didn't in fact work when the weather cooled down (they never actually did test) but it happens.

    Another's house I sold early this year, it was in the 50s and raining the day of the inspection. Again stipulated the AC needed testing and again, the buyer never coordinated checking it.

    My personal home I bought now, it was also 50s and raining, the AC unit couldn't be tested. Being a wall mount unit, I didn't stipulate or care if it worked (it does luckily).

    There are hurdles with buying anything, this just happens to be one of them. With that said, I'm sure there are flippers who cut corners and put out junk, however there are others who are budget conscious with the finished, but wouldn't skimp on the important items. It's bad business to do things half a**ed so you always hope people do the right thing.

    0Reply
  • Yulia Garvanovic
    OP
    Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes
    9y
    Originally posted by @Joe L.:

    Greetings from a fellow concordite!

    Hi, Joe:) So cool to meet a fellow concordite here:) 

    1Reply
  • Yulia Garvanovic
    OP
    Concord, NH · Member since 2016 · 22 posts · 12 votes
    9y

    So I finally got a quote from my HVAC company: about $400 for the work (3-4 hours) plus about $700 in materials...

    1Reply
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