Expert: Jim Root - 9/9/2009

Question
Dear Melinda,
   My fiancee and I have found an older home that we are interested in buying.  The problem is that nothing has been disclosed because the owner has never lived in the house.  He bought the house three years ago and has been renting it out since the beginning.
   My question is this, is there anyway for us to find this information out before putting in a bid and paying for extra inspections?  I was wondering if we could get the seller's disclosure statement from when he bought the house only three years prior.  
   Please let me know if there is anything we could do.  Thank you for your time.
                      Sincerely,
                      Stacey Rinker


Answer
Hi Stacey--

Im not Melinda, but for some reason your Question went to the Question Pool. I found it there and felt you deserved an answer ASAP.

A Disclosure Statement from three years ago may be missing the disclosure of some very important
deficiencies that have come up over the past three years.I wouldn't suggest putting much credence to such a Disclosure.

My experience with CURRENT Property Disclosure Forms has involved
too many "Oh Oh,I guess I forgot that time we found termites in the crawlspace and had a treatment to get rid of them." OR "I didn't think I had to disclose the fire in the junfinished attic. It didn't dol much damage before it was extinguished--and everything was repaired."

Melinda may or may not agree with me, but here's my credo.

NEVER BUY A HOME CONSIDERING ITS CONDITION BASED ON A SELLER'S PROPERTY DISCLOSURE STATEMENT--GET A FULL-BLOWN HOME INSPECTION FROM A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL BEFORE YOU MAKE A FINAL BUYING DECISION.

You shouldn't have to pay for a Home Inspection BEFORE making your OFFER/putting in a BID on this old Home. Just make sure that your OFFER/BID contains a Home Inspection Contingancy Clause--

-IE "This Offer/Acceptance is subject to the Purchaser's review of a Home Inspection Report done by an Inspector of the Purchaser's Choice.FeeThe Fee for tis Inspction will be paid for by___________. The Inspection will be completed no later than_____days from the signed-around date of this Purchase & Sale Agreement. The Purchaser may terminate this agreement if any of the contents of the Inspection discloses any conditions unacceptable to the Purchaser."ETC

That's just one way of writing the Home Inspection "Subject to" verbiage.Your Realtor olr a Lawyer may have other wording, but that's the idea of it. Typically the first blank is filled in with "10 days". The second blank,is the "Purchaser" in a Balanced or Sellers Market,BUT in today's Unbalanced/more a Buyers Market because lof the ue number lf Foreclsures ut there-- and considring that the Seller's unable to come up with the Disclosure, one MIGHT get the Seller to pay for the Inspection. It's NEGOTIABLE.

Good luck with your purchase of "That Old House!"


--JIM ROOT