All Forum Posts by: William C.

@Hai Loc where on earth are more deals like that?

@Valerie Smith I would forget about painting the cabinets and find someone that can give you an actual ARV. Guessing will put you in the poor house pretty quick. I don't know what market you are in, but I'm more likely to find a unicorn than an "underpriced duplex" in my market. Best of luck. If deals are just sitting, there should be a better one out there.

@Raheem Jenkins the heater is operating just fine. They simply are not happy with the way it is operating, so they are reaching for reasons why it must be replaced. Maybe you can explain the manual J issue to me. They claim the unit is too large at 110k, and want to replace with 80k. Our manual J calls for a 110k. I’m not sure to what extent everyone reviews it, nor do I know how they are produced, but our architect signed off on it, the township signed off on it to issue the permit, and the township signed off on t again after we installed it. Is it the townships fault? In the spirit of looking for others to blame, isn’t it the townships fault for approving our plans??

@Ritchie Molitor I’m not in contact with the buyer, it’s the buyers agent. Also, there have not made a specific request as of yet, they sent me an inspection report from another HVAC company that points out the issues I’ve mentioned. Quite frankly, there is no way I just throw $2k at this thing to make it go away, nor would most people in my position, which is why I’m on here getting wide ranging and excellent ideas from all of you. Paying them off using my DJ voice just isn’t advice I’m going to take just yet. Thanks for the response though

@Matthew Paul the GC suggested the same exact thing.

@Teri S. I see what you mean now. If I could go back I’m pretty sure I still would not put in a 2 zone system.

@Roberto Cervantes The GC ignored their calls, so the buyers agent contacted me. I understand what your saying, but it is my problem until it’s not. These are my contractors, I can’t just leave them out to dry with an angry buyer and say not my problem. I’d agree I am not financially responsible, but I do feel I have an obligation to see that there is some sort of resolution. “Legal” has been threatened more than once. Sure, I’d win in court, but it would cost time and money to deal with that so just trying to find a solution

@Russell Brazil Your response was perfect. Pretty much exactly what I needed to hear. And you are right, I am “right” in the situation, but I’d rather have a home inspection to refer to than be right.

Now that we’ve cleared up what I should have done. Any advice on where to go from here? Plan is to replace 2in w 3in pvc as called for by manufacturer. Fix leak they caused. But that’s the extent of the issues we can fix. They want to spend $12k to replace it with a smaller system....to be perfectly honest they still have not made it exactly clear what they want. They just kind of said here, we have an issue. The HVAC offered to make the repairs.

@Russell Brazil I missed your response to Brian. It answers some of my questions. But what if they refuse to pay for an inspection even though you insist?

@Brian Faust your question clearly illustrates my point. Buyers are CHOOSING to drop inspection contingencies. Now we have to force them to do otherwise? Who pays for it if they refuse? If I do, can’t they just argue I hired “my guy” and therefor he gave us a favorable report? Cans of worms everywhere. I would have gladly welcomed a home inspection contingency, they opted out. I’d be more inclined to accept offers WITH a contingency as to not be forced to cover the cost myself to “cover my own ***” since they are not smart enough to do their own due diligence. Just typing that makes me cringe. Flippers and sellers need to do the buyers due diligence for them? Yikes!

@Teri S. A design flaw? Thanks, but no thanks. It has nothing to do with design, and everything to do with the fact that the buyers can’t get there home comfortable, so they are looking for someone to blame. The downstairs is cold, and the upstairs is hot. Sure, a two zone unit would solve this, but I’m not required to install two zoned units.

The only issue with the heater is the metal casing has some rust on it, from the leak in the evaporation coil. Also, the 2inch pvc should be 3in, because the run is longer than it was shown in the plans. But to say that requires a complete new system is absurd. We’d like to correct the pvc, but who ever said it might be right that it may invent them to believe we are responsible for the maintenance of their home.

They claim the unit is oversized. Our manual J says otherwise. For HVAC guys out there. Who’s manual J do we believe, theirs or ours? Isn’t that something that is standard? How can 2 guys say a ho e needs 2 different sized units. My assumption is they are just saying that as a way to show a “need” for replacement.

Lastly, having required them to get a pre settlment inspection would not have prevented this. The home inspector simply would have said, it’s brand new, it runs, no need to have a HVAC guy come service and certify it, which would be typical of an older system. So we’d be right back here, but with a clean home inspection report.

Does Caveat Emptor mean anything anymore? I need to FORCE buyers to get inspections? Not sure how that would fly. Who pays the $500?

thanks for all of the responses so far. Need to make a few clarifications. The Buyer tried to contact the contractor and they ignored the Buyer, now I’m involved. My first thought was that the contractor is on the hook. This GC is extremely valuable to me, and it’s not the type of situation I can push off to him and dust my hands of.

Regarding the manufacture warranty....that’s an option. The “issue” is pipe sizes and a leak in the evaporater coil.

Update: I just spoke to the contractor and he made sense of it all. The home is not new construction, it was a renovation with an added second floor. So with the new sq ft we installed a system according to a manual J. The new inspector is claiming the unit is too large. My contractor realized they are having issues heating the house to their liking. The downstairs is original, so the R value is much less than the “newly installed” second floor. The first floor is likely cold, and the second floor is hot. The Buyer works in an HVAC warehouse, so he found one of his buddies to come by the house and see what he could find. Bottom line, it was installed properly. We are going to fix the leak in good faith, but it’s been a year, it was obviously working when they moved in, and caused by their negligence one way or another. It’s in closet so it could have easily been bumped. We’re going to replace the 2 in pvc with 3 inch, and fix the leak. They are asking us to pay for a return to be ran to every single room. LOL. As I said, they can’t get their house comfortable, so they are trying to blame it on the heater.

Long story short, we popped the top on a rancher, and rebuilt the home from the ground up. The GC hired a professional HVAC that he works with on all projects to install the HVAC. The day after settlement the buyers contacted us saying the AC didn’t work. We looked into and found it could not be charged with Freon at installation, so the professional went to the property and charged the AC. Now we are almost a year from settlment. The buyers agent has contacted me again, complaining about issues with the HVAC system. They sent me a report which I forwarded to our GC to look at and hopefully address the problems. But my question is, am I even liable? I’m trying to do the right thing, and make sure they have an operating HVAC. It was installed brand new so it certainly should not be having any issues this short into its life, but there has to be a point where the seller is no longer on the hook for issues a buyer faces. I’m in PA, if anyone wants to refer to state laws. Iv been in RE for 10 years and have done over 100 transactions and never had a buyer contact a seller after settlement, let alone a year later to ask for $14k to replace an HVAC system we paid $8k to put in under 12 months ago. Buyers did not perform a home inspection prior to settlement. The township did inspect the property as needed to satisfy permits, certificate of occupancy, etc. I tried to keep this short but failed. While I’m at it I’ll mention the new HvAC guy is Saying a 110k unit is too large for the 2200 square foot home and wants to replace it with 80k unit. We are in a cold climate, and while the home was renovated, it’s Bones are still 100 years old, which I’m told requires a little more BTU than a new construction ho e would. Any and all input and perspectives are appreciated.

SOLD! This was a successful project even though it took nearly 7 months to just get the building started while going back and forth with the township for permits. I guess the lesson learned here was to work with an architect and contractor that are familiar with the perticular township to avoid this kind of delay. Our budget for renovations was $186k. We spent $195k. Not bad, even with a 20% increase to lumber after the Houston hurricane. We ran into more than one item that went over budget but were still able to keep the budget within reason. My estimate sales price before we started was $425k. We listed at $450k which I knew was high and we ended up settling at $415k. After acquisition, renovation and carrying costs the project profited $65,000. Not too shabby. It was by far our biggest project yet and also produced the biggest profit. On the next armed with even more knowledge.