ColumbiaBroker
Blythewood,#2General Comment
Fri, August 26, 2011
Sorry to hear of your troubles, James.
The rule of thumb in real estate is to always disclose everything that may come up in an inspection. If there was any recent history with the foundation, you should have openly informed this information and stated that a lifetime warranty transfers with the property (which most of these companys offer).
I see this all too many times with sellers who want to put the home in the best light to the public. The best approach with disclosures is if in doubt, disclose. In this case, I believe it would have eliminated a lot of drama and would have saved you a lot of headache and possibly kept the deal.
An agent's job is to protect their client. In this case, you are not the client of the buyer's agent so her interests were in line solely with her buyers. Your agent should also have done the same due diligence as you're expecting of the buyer's agent.
*A side note on the foundation experts. You state that the gentleman who came out was a sales engineer. Always make sure you're getting a degreed engineer to give you an opinion, not a sales guy with an engineer title.
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Anderson,#3Consumer Comment
Thu, July 03, 2008
So now you may be forced to fight this out in court in a "he said, she said" saga. The lawyers' meters will be running. Usually nobody wins such suits.... except the lawyers.
Buying a house with foundation issues, real or imagined, is always a risk, and if you had kept the house for 10 years or more with no (additional) developing foundation problems you would be OK. Two years is rather short. I always avoided houses with real or imagined foundation issues.
This "Lori Carnes" would seem to be a fee-for-service buyers broker, which means she MUST fully protect the buyers' interests. Most RE agents will work subagency to the seller who pays their comission, so they will usually put as much lipstick on the pig as they can get away with.