The sellers lived there for less than a year. They replaced all fixtures in home, painted, new roof, and front landscaping. I'm assuming they just flipped the house. Is it possible to find the home inspection from when they bought the house to find out if they knew about it and did not fix it just painted over it?

"The water seems to have come through the baseboards. "

How does water come thru the baseboards? The baseboards are interior trim. the water needs to be coming from somewhere else. Pictures from the exterior of the house may be of some help in determining where it is coming in from, but I doubt you will get any satisfaction from the previous owner.

If it's coming through the basement wall in one or more places, it will run down inside the framing and come out the bottom through the cracks between baseboard and wall or floor. Makes sense to me.

Home inspection reports become the property of the person who hired it done, and as far as I know they aren't required to be filed with the local govt. where they would be accessible through sunshine laws.

If you sued the seller, they would have to cough it up as part of the discovery process. If you're looking at enough repair cost to make it worthwhile, you might consider talking to an attorney.

Also if you can find out who they bought the house from, you might get some information from them. They would have no reason not to tell you if they had water problems. Unless, that is, they lied to the flippers who bought it from them. ;-]

Thanks for your advice! I guess first step would be to go through our homeowners insurance? Here are some pics the corner behind ac unit is where it's coming out of the corner baseboard in basement.

I live in GA as well and have found that sellers in this state do not disclose issues. I am a lot smarter after living in GA as to how dishonest people can be. No hate on GA, this has just been what I have experienced. In Georgia you don't have to list square footage when you sell, it's just odd to me.

Might look at papers you signed when you bought the house. When mom died we sold her home & we bought insurance in case anything went wrong they would be covered. It cost around $300 but we figured better than getting sued over something we knew nothing about. Mom's home looked new, very well kept up & dad was able to repair anything expertly not some patch job(he had built 7 homes) so see if they had that ins. to cover any problems that might arise. Looks like you might need a drain to take water away from that area but it's covered so is that deck flooding & water runoff going in that corner, if that is case might be able to put a gutter all along that end slightly under deck edge & (open at topside of it so water on deck can go in it & then have it travel to area where it can safely flow away. Can't tell from pic where it would need to go.

Oh, looked at the enlarged pic of that corner(1st pic) & that corner has been patched so unless you did it, it is uneven going up the wall in corner at least a foot & why is the quarter round at bottom not going to the corner like it should & quarter round around the corner is smaller? I think the other people had to have known or were blind to building mistakes. When it's raining check what is happening so you know.

Didn't you as the buyer pay for a home inspection? I'm confused on that one. I sold my house last year and the buyers paid for the home inspection, which I also got a copy of.

We did but nothing was noticible...

Since they had painted everything. :-\

Any problem with the grading next to the house can allow water to pool and penetrate. It looks like that floor is at ground level. Is it on a slab? A long period of drought can alter the ground and allow the house to settle differently than it was before, then with a heavy rain the water may travel a different path than in years past.

The previous owners may have patched a damaged area without any idea that it was a persistent problem, or even what caused it, due to the drought. Since they owned the property a short time, they may not have experienced it themselves.

Make sure that the gutter directly above the area isn't clogged and overflowing right there. That is a common cause of water penetration, also.

Did you ever notice the wall on the corner being different, or did that just show up after the rain?

All that dirt bunched up around the brickwork is an invitation to termites. Suggest removing dirt down to expose foundation along with any other repairs needed.

If you remove dirt down to the foundation the water will drain toward the house, exactly what you don't want. Looks to me like maybe rainwater is being channeled between the AC pad and the house and finding its way in from there.