I Feel Sick Over Seller's Deception

7 years ago

I am really hoping the new buyer of the flip next door does their due diligence. I watched the people who bought the house do some shady things. Back story is the house was sold for $34,000 a couple of years ago. IMHO it should have been torn down. The house had mold and was in terrible shape. The house is built on a crawl space.

I watched the seller take out rotten wood then re-use some of that wood (and nails, he was big on loudly demanding that his wife and helpers gathered up nails to re-use) for the renovation. I watched them build an addition to the attic and noticed that the house now seems to have sunk a couple inches on the side of the addition.

The house is now listed for sale at top dollar. The listing states the previous sale of the house was $74,000 which is untrue. I hope the new buyer really reads the details on the auditor's site for the previous sale price. Next the real estate agent is telling the buyers the house is built on a slab which is not true. He tried to argue the point with me because "the owner tells me it is built on a slab." The flipper has concealed from the outside the crawl space vent on one side, but the other is apparent as it looks like a hole in the side of the house in which you can clearly see the brick foundation. The roof has new shingles but you can see where the roof looks uneven. As if the wood underneath is not flat and part of it looks for better word "cracked" under the shingles where the new porch meets the house.

The old furnace (pretty sure they didn't take that out due to still able to see the slightly rusty stack at the roof) is now hidden behind a wall, along with the hot water tank. I didn't hang around long enough at the open house to ask about this. The listing makes no mention of the furnace or hot water tank. I find this odd as most people selling a house as "fully renovated" list the furnace. There is also no air conditioning.

The interior of the house cosmetically looks very nice. Although it would probably do me better for a buyer to buy the house at top dollar the ethical part of me just feels sick at the deception. I can only hope that the new buyer gets a very good home inspector and looks at the auditor's site with keen eyes.

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Comments (5)

Mrs. S
7 years ago
What's the asking price of the home (out of curiousity)? This sure isn't my part of the country, or you'd have to add a couple zeros to those prices.

My first reaction is that you need to stay out of it. Any interference from you could lead to liability for interference with a business transaction, not to mention the ire of the seller.

I see people making poor decisions all the time, hiring people to work for them with terrible reputations. You just can't save people from themselves. Where I live, everyone I know gets a home inspection. I would just assume a buyer would.
gyr_falcon
7 years ago
We learned quite a few bits of useful info from neighbors when we were looking into our house. If you get asked, recommend they hire a well qualified inspector. It is something most purchasers should do anyway, so would be difficult for the seller to blame you for saying it if the buyer flees. Sounds as if there are plenty of visible red flags on the house, so if buyers purchase without checking, realize you cannot always save everyone from themselves.
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Blue Onblue
Original Author
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Thanks for the comments. I do plan to stay out of it. We live in a great area with very affordable housing and low crime. The average listing price is 200k. Also- we do get tornadoes and most houses here have basements.
functionthenlook
7 years ago
A good inspector will insist on seeing the furnace and hot water tank. If they hid rotten wood in walls that he cannot see.
jlhug
7 years ago
The good inspector should be able to easily figure out that the house is on a crawl space and not a slab.