All Forum Posts by: Luke Cionci

@Stuart Udis Thanks for replying so promptly, I appreciate the advice you've given. You're right, we should have never retained this contractor until the appropriate documents were given to us. He kept re assuring he would send everything that's why we did not question it.

I recently bought my first  home and had started replacing the siding myself. Along the way discovered some of the walls were rotted out due to previous termite damage. Since this was out of my experience I hired a "Structural Engineer" to replace all of the rotted out studs, reframe the wall, and a few other things. Him & his team started and finished the job in one day. Mind you this was not a one day job. After speaking with him about everything that popped up I became weary & questioning the work performed.

Once he left the property I decided to cut into the sheathing and discovered all of the rotted out wood was still there. The scope of work we had discussed was not in any sense completed. Before he started the work, on multiple occasions I had requested proof of permits, the actual estimate, and at least something in writing. Nothing ever came and he has been demanding payment. Turns out after further research we had discovered his license had expired in July of 2023. Since then I've had a few other contractors come out and verify the work is not sufficient let alone up to code. They were also able to provide new estimates on the work needing to be done including correcting everything the original contractor had done.

My question is, should I pursue some sort of legal action or just never get into contact with said contractor again? This is my first go around with real estate and contractors in general. I blame myself for neglecting to do further research but I guess that's the way it goes when you're just starting out. You've got to learn from your mistakes. Thanks to anyone who shares an opinion.

Cheers,
Luke

Hey there bigger pockets community! I am currently under contract on what would be my first BRRRR. Found the house on Zillow, and it has been sitting on the market for more than 6 months due to the shape it's currently in. The current agreed upon price of the home is 325k with 6% sellers assist. There's around $80 - 100k in repairs needed.

Upon inspection it was recommended to have a structural engineer come out and do another inspection as the floors upstairs in the bedrooms are clearly not level. The seller agreed to have the engineer come out but only to do a visual inspection, not a full inspection where they drill a small hole into the house and use a camera to actually see the structural integrity of the home. This type of response from the seller immediately raised a red flag as they must know, or suspect something is wrong with the house. On top of this, they did not make any disclosures about the house from the beginning. 

In my area, to fix any major structural issues can be anywhere around 10 - $20,000. Our response to the seller was since they would not allow a full structural inspection to decrease the ask by $20,000. 

As we patiently wait for a response, has anyone been in a similar situation or have any other recommendations? 

Thanks,

Luke