About Rick Stone, Broker/Owner, CRS, ABR, GRI Expertise I am a licensed Real Estate Broker working in the surrounding Cabo san Lucas, Mexico. I have worked the past 11 years in Virginia and Washington DC. I have also represented a custom home builder for a number of years, served as chairperson for my HOA Architectural Review Board and closed hundreds of transactions. I will do my best to respond to any related questions regarding the buying or selling of real estate.
Questions can be regarding your search in finding a great agent to work with and what to do with a bad one. Real estate agency, contract issues, home inspections, real estate investing and property disclosure issues. I'll do my best and wave my magic wand to get you out of problems concerning your builder or be happy to tell you what you should had known before you wrote the contract or before you do. How do you buy or sell raw land, tear down an old house and rebuild new, and all you should know about waterfront properties are good questions too.
I will say this, I am candid with my reposnces and do my very best to offer advice that may teach but there are cases where if as Forrest Gump's mother would say, "stupid is what stupid does" or something like that, I may have to scold you to get my point across.
Experience I'm proud to achieved the following professional real estate designations: CRB, Council of Real Estate Brokers - CRS, Certified Residential Specialist - GRI, Graduate of the Realtors Institute and ABR, Accredited Buyers Representative. I am a member of the National Association of REALTORS, Mexican Association of REALTORS (AMPI) and the Los Cabos MLS. I own and sell waterfront properties so I can address issues related to living on the water. I represented a custom builder for many years and have sold hundreds of new homes so, fire away with your questions regarding new home construction.
I'll do my best to be straight up and help if I can or I will tell you if I can not and who to contact in that event. I am not an attorney and can not provide legal advice. If you are having a dispute with a seller or buyer who has failed to live up to the contract terms, or a tenant that is always late with paying their rent, while I may not be able to help, I may be able to offer suggestions and then who else to contact.
Please, please, please, understand that real estate law, agency and tenant rights / law differs from state to state and so I will best serve those who have problems in Virginia, Washington DC or Mexico. While I am happy to answer all questions from any one who writes me and offer advice, please understnad that in some cases, I may not be able to help you at all. Please tell me what state your property is located in, if you have a problem with commissions, discharging agents, getting out of a contract, do us both a favor, first look in your documents for the language therein and when you write me, please say that you have re-read that wording.
If you have not yet hired your agent, write me for essential questions you should ask first and save yourself a lot of time, agony, misery and possible financial unhappiness.
Expert: Rick Stone, Broker/Owner, CRS, ABR, GRI - 4/18/2008
Question My wife and I bought our first house in August of last year (we are in northeast Texas). Its been a great house so far, except for one thing. We've constantly been having close calls of water almost coming in the front door and ponding against our house. Our front yard has a pretty substantial slope from the road to our house, as well as our neighbor to the left of us, his house and yard are above ours and slopes into our yard. We have no curb along the street, so water flows straight from the road onto our yard and sidewalk and flows directly to our house.
We do have a drain just infront and to the left of the front porch that drains the water off of the porch. However, it does not drain water that ponds against the side of the house adjacent to the porch. Our front porch has been submerged in water at least 5-6 times in the 8 months or so we've been in this house. 2-3 times so much so that it has touched the bottom of the metal threshold of the front door, and the last time it was halfway up the threshold. It never came in though. However, during an intense thunderstorm, to prevent the house from flooding, I usually have to wade out into the water and hand clear the drain if it happens to clog.
During the buying process, I never specifically asked the previous sellers about the issue, but I did bring it up with my real estate agent and my home inspector while he was performing the inspection. He wasn't that concerned about it and said as long as I keep the drain clear it should be fine.
The last time it rained, it never came through the front door, but instead seeped through the bricks or weep holes and mildewed our carpet in two rooms along that wall. During that rain, the water level next to the house was at least 1 and 1/2 bricks to 2 bricks above the slab. This water has nowhere to drain, and just sits there til it evaporates or soaks in.
We have gotten a couple of professionals to look at the situation. The last one (most experienced in this area) said that this is a pretty serious issue and will only get worse. Without me even disclosing that we had water infiltrate the house, he said if it hadn't happened already it WILL happen. He said that the existing drain is completely insufficient and only gets water off of the porch and not the water that is next to the house. We will have to pull up our shrubs, install a french drain around two sides of the house, tie in two gutters, and install a retaining wall. All for a total cost of $4,000. Not to mention the carpet to replace two rooms at $750. Both professionals, when told that the previous owners claim they've had no problems, laughed at the idea and said emphatically "this isn't just a new problem...its happened before and the inspector should have caught this."
There was NOTHING on the sellers disclosure about past or present flooding problems. I contacted my real estate office, and they contacted the previous owners as well as the owners that sold that house before them. Predictably, nobody has had any problems and my inspector, as well as the previous owners' inspector did not have any qualms about the slope and drainage.
So, now, i'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. We don't have the money right now to fix all of this, and now...i'm going to have to disclose this when we sell this house. I feel that the inspector should have some responsibility, but he has that clause in this report that his liability will not exceed the cost of the inspection. HOWEVER, I had NO idea that this clause was on there as I didn't sign anything and didn't even see the report til a few days ago (he verbally went over with me the things that were wrong), and said he'd send the bill to the title company to collect at closing and they'd have the report.
Should I start talking to a lawyer? Will I waste my time in a small claims court with the previous owners? Is the inspector free and clear because of that clause which I never even saw? What about the real estate office, they represented both the buyer and seller in this transaction, as well as they are the sponsor and set up the real estate inspector.
Answer Hello Jeff. I appreciate a fully prepared question.
Start talking to a lawyer is the short answer and take their temperature. It's possible that as this real estate company handled both sides of the sale and earned both sides of the commissions, a call from a lawyer may get this company - for the sake of good public relations, to pay for the needed work.
It makes for bad headlines, especially in tough times like these for real estate companies to get bad press that they did not properly represent their client. Your attorney may also hint that you may file a formal complaint with the real estate board that you were not properly represented. As you are a first time buyer, you should had been assigned to an agent with many years of experience who would know what questions to ask and of potential conditions you should take notice of that you, being a frist time buyer, would not.
Some points to consider;
1) You bought your first home and relied upon professionals to guide you and give you the benefit of their past experiences and expertise. You did the right thing, in hiring someone to look after your best interests however, it looks to me that your agent was not experienced or perhaps failed to warn you of the potential situations surrounding this house. I would say this agent did not properly look out for your best interests as we are all bound to do.
As you say, it is quite obvious of the slope towards the home from not only the street but a neighboring property and that there is a drain by the side of the side of the house - this should had sounded a big ass alarm bell in my book. This agent in doing their job should had contacted a representative from the County to review this prior to your making an offer, certainly prior to speding money on a home inspection. I would had knocked on the doors of the adjacent neighbors and asked myself if they knew of any problems.
2) Most all service contracts with home inspectors, even those who are State or Nationally Certified have a clause that protects them from detecting deficiencies that are behind walls or in areas not easily accessible. That you did not have an opportunity to review the service contract prior to his performing the inspection is queer.
All inspectors I have worked with, always give the client the agreement to review and ask if there are any questions prior to beginning any work. This may be something on your side but, I would not hold your breath. The inspector once he had noticed the slope from the road, should had told you of the possibility of flooding and that you should do further research on your own, possibly to bring in someone more qualified than he was to determine if this is a problem or not. For this inspectortTo say they did not perceive this as a problem raises serious questions as to their expertise and I would demand that at least their fee be returned and I would send a letter to the company to whom this person works as well. That they did not make you weary and encourage you to seek anothers review, I would say they failed in their duty to properly advise you.
3) You say that the real estate company was both the listing and selling company. What you did not say is if your REALTOR acted as a Dual Agent? Or, did one agent in the office have the listing and another agent from that same office work with you? This is a big question. Not that it is illegal for a listing agent to work both sides of a transaction (well actually in some states it is) (most Brokers frown upon it as it raises too many potential problems about agency and duties to the client).
If you worked with the Listing agent, I do hope that you were given a Dual Agency Agreement to sign and were given a full understanding that the company now does not represent you as a Buyer but is acting as a facilitator in passing documents between parties. Under this type of relationship, the agent gives up some duties to you, meaning that they are required to disclose any known or presumed known deficiencies but they have no obligation to 'look outside the box' and raise questions that should had been more closely discussed.
4) A REALTOR referring a professional to perform certain duties is very common. I have my list of contractors too that I know do a proper job. I always give my clients the option however in selecting my guys or choosing one of their own they know of or can find through a friend that had a good experience. It's tricky because as REALTOR, you do assume some liability in recommending a contractor when things go wrong.
Water issues are huge. Proving a Seller lied is difficult. Your best chance to move forward may be with the help of an attorney, it may never get if front of a judge, my feelings are that once the Broker receives that call, the tide will turn.
I really can't offer much help other than this, I hope it gives you some direction and if other questions come to mind, you are welcome to write me again.
