So my wife and I settled on a new house a couple months ago. We did our due diligence, had the house inspected by a licensed and reputable home inspector, bought the house under the guidance of a real estate agent with 20+ years experience buying and selling homes in our area. Nevertheless, the county sheriff came knocking on our door last week.
We bought our house from a company that specializes in taking foreclosed properties, buying them at bargain prices at bankruptcy auctions, investing some money improving the property, and then flipping them again for a big profit. They've been in the business for awhile, based on what we can gather from internet searches, and we also gather that they bought our property in early to mid-December of '09. They gutted the kitchen and baths, refinished all of the floors, and turned a half bath into a full one, and then put the property back on the market about 30 to 45 days later.
Apparently, though, while they were doing all this work, they managed to annoy one of the neighbors, who reported them for having trucks and workmen in the place at all hours of the day and night. The neighbor complained to the county, who sent an inspector out to investigate. At the time of the inspector's first visit, no one was on the property, but he noted that there were no building permits posted, that there was much building debris in the yard, and also that there was a deck and a outbuilding that were built by the previous owners who didn't follow proper procedures or get the proper permits to build the structures. He returned the next day, and did gain access to the property and did a more thorough inspection.
The county then attempted to contact the flipper (which is based in a different state from our property) by sending him a certified letter, which he apparently refused delivery, so the letter was returned to the county, unopened. Since the company is based in a different county and state, the county inspectors did not have any authority for more aggressive delivery methods. As best we can determine, this took place about a week after we made our offer on the house, about 10 days after the flipper put the house on the market, but prior to the closing "party," (which, I might add, the flipper, nor a representative for his company, did not attend).
So in the meantime, the county cooled its heels. We closed on the property, moved in, and celebrated our first month in the house. Last week, however, the sheriff served us with papers telling us that we were in violation.
We contacted the county the next day, explained that we had nothing to do with the trucks, the lack of permits, nor the construction of the out-buildings. Their attitude was that they understood, and were sympathetic, and that they would attempt to track down the flipper, but in the worst case scenario, we were on the hook for the violations, and that we could be compelled to allow inspectors full access to the property to inspect the work done, which we fear could include destroying some walls and such to allow them access to new pipes, etc. Furthermore, we figure we're probably going to be on the hook to bring the shed and the deck up to code, even though the structures clearly date back several years.
My real questions are these : Who was the person who dropped the ball, and should have caught that there were outstanding issues with the seller and the county? Should our real estate agent have picked up on it? Our inspector? The people who did the title search when we closed on the house? The mortgage company's appraiser? Us? Someone should have seen this coming, right?
posted by crunchland to home & garden (28 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
posted by dfriedman at 12:01 PM on April 26, 2010 [5 favorites]