Is there any point to consulting a real estate lawyer, 5 years later?

September 5, 2023 1:08 PM

The amount of repairs that my Oregon house has needed and continues to need in the almost 5 years since purchase seems insane. Only a couple issues were disclosed when I bought it and the home inspector completely missed or ignored multiple issues. Is there any point in trying to talk to a lawyer about suing the inspector and/or real estate agents and/or former owner now?

I bought my house for cash in December 2018. I was aware going in that it was an older house - 1950 - that needed some work, but not that it was a complete fixer upper. I did not much like my real estate agents but for a variety of reasons, I was pretty desperate. They picked out the real estate appraiser (I know, I know.)

This is what has gone wrong since then:

The sewer line was broken at the main under the street. This has happened up and down the street and should be a city issue; I have gotten it fixed; long story; but, here's the thing: I think the former owner knew about it.

The foundation is crumbling. It is costing $60,000 to repair it. In the inspection report, it says that torn insulation in the crawlspace meant the foundation was not inspected - he couldn't see it. Verbally, he assured me it was fine. It was not fine. I had two companies come in and look at it and they told me there were years of damage and evidence that it had been covered up.

For some insane reason, there are two main drain lines from the house. Both are cast iron and ancient. Now this, I think, might be the one thing they disclosed. In the contract, the former owner stated that the house needed a new sewer line (because of tree roots, they said) complete with an estimate from a local plumber for $8000. They were going to do it on settlement. We negotiated having me do that instead for a $10K price break. I had the line snaked and a cleanout put in instead and it has never been a problem - until this weekend when the problem turned out to be under the house. Neither the estimate nor the seller said that. This did not mention the city sewer connection issue at all. That came to light about a year after I bought it - when the city showed up at my door.

The house needed a new electrical panel, a new hot water heater, a new stove and it's going to need a new furnace soon. The electrical panel is the only thing that was on the inspection. It needs a new roof. I knew that was coming in about this timeframe (it was on the inspection) but I did not know it needed fully new guttering. I think the former owner did.

There's no subfloor. There is horrible carpet; when you pull it up there's plywood. Turns out there's nothing under the plywood.

And, the most recent disaster: the kitchen sink drain plumbing was so old that the pipes began to crumble when we took it apart to fix a clog. The bathroom sink plumbing was hidden behind a complicated 2 drawer cabinet thing so we had no idea it had been leaking for some time. Until, that is, it basically exploded two days ago, which coincided neatly with the kitchen clog, which lead to the emergency plumber's 3 hours of work at $250 per. Am I bitter? I'm bitter. The plumber said, oh wow, these should both have been fixed years ago.

OK. So do I have anything resembling a case or should I call it caveat emptor and get on with my life? Is there any point at all in consulting with a lawyer? I had to take out a mortgage for $150,000 to cover all this and that has basically screwed my financial life plans forever. It would be damn nice if I could get at least the foundation money back. I feel like I got took, hard. I was okay with getting took a little - I love my house, I needed a place to live immediately, there was barely anything on the market even close to my price range, some bullshit was inevitable - but we're at over $100K and rising, now. I thought, when I bought it, that I was probably looking at around $30,000 in eventual repairs over the next decade or so. That, I could have budgeted for.

Bonus question, if there is a point to this, what kind of lawyer do I call? I am not calling anyone local for reasons; I'll call someone in Portland.

Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions!

posted by mygothlaundry to Law & Government (29 answers total)

here's the thing: I think the former owner knew about it.

You say this multiple times - what can you prove that has led you to this conclusion? Because it’s pretty crucial to any potential case to be able to prove they knew things and withheld them from you. An example might be notices the city would have sent them that they ignored - you might have a case if you can prove that.

The foundation seems pretty cut and dried if the inspector clearly reported they could not assess the foundation in their report.

It’s not sufficient to have people say things should have been done years ago for you to go after them. People buy houses with deferred maintenance or issues all the time - often reflected in the price they ask. In my jurisdiction, this is often covered by an “as is, where is” declaration in the selling agreements and associated house listings. Essentially - you buy the house knowing it could have issues and agree to purchase it anyways. You should look for language like that in your purchase agreement.
posted by openhearted at 1:39 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Holy shit. I could have made this post two years ago. In 2017, I paid cash for a 1948 home in West Linn. I knew it needed work, but I was fine with that. After four years and $150,000+, I gave up. We'd made so many repairs, but there were still more issues that needed addressing. We were lucky with our timing. We disclosed everything — the previous owners had not, which pissed us off — and somebody bought it. I still took a big loss, but at least I'm out of the place now.

I can't fault our home inspector because he warned us not to make the purchase. We did anyhow. (Interestingly enough, the folks who bought it from us also ignored their inspector.) I do wish our real-estate agent had spoken up, but the people I'm especially angry at are the previous owners. They knew about this stuff — they had to because they were there twenty years — but they didn't disclose. In fact, they deliberately hid some of the problems: furniture over water stains, potted plants over rotten decking, other potted plants in front of rotted siding. Also, they sold it themselves and I'm willing to bet that's so they could avoid having a real-estate agent tell them to fix things.

By the time I'd dealt with this for two or three years, I began to think about legal action. If you knew me, you'd know this was a Big Deal. I'm a passive guy who just goes with the flow and would normally never consider a lawsuit. But what these folks did when selling the house was shady af. But when I contacted my attorney, he told me that we were past the statute of limitations (or something along those lines) to do anything. My memory was that we had three years to make a fuss, and we were just past that mark.

Now, having said that, don't take my word for it. Consult your own attorney. I just want to offer you some commiseration. I've been there. I know it sucks. I got lucky and was able to sell the house even with all of the problems because the market was blazing hot in 2021. I was afraid that disclosing all of the issues would scare everyone off, but one couple was willing to take a stab at it — just as we had taken a stab four years earlier. I very much hope they've had better luck. We pumped $150,000 into the place, so that gave them a headstart. But man I wish I could have that money back.
posted by jdroth at 1:40 PM on September 5, 2023 [10 favorites]

I have a similar situation with my beautiful terrible money pit (in Illinois rather than Oregon). I'm not sure about the rest of your questions, but I do know that when I got my home inspection done I had to sign a contract. It stated that if they missed something that they should have caught, I could get the price of the home inspection back (a few hundred) but no more. I'm guessing that's pretty standard practice, do you have a copy of your paperwork? It also said that if something was not able to be caught because they couldn't see it without damaging the house to get to it, they weren't responsible at all.
posted by Eyelash at 1:41 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Lawyer + former owner of a beloved 1950s Cape Cod-money pit, but not your lawyer and not a lawyer in this area or jurisdiction: without more about why you think there was concealment, this sounds like an uphill battle legally, but it still is worth consulting a real estate attorney for an informed take on the details. One overriding issue to bear in mind is that it's very tricky to argue without strong indication of concealment that a former owner or inspector knew or should have known about a problem that you're only discovering 4+ years into ownership -- that it was hard for you to identify the issue or took time for it to turn into an emergency can cut against you, even if the whole situation has the strong whiff of misdoing by the prior residents.

You want someone who does residential real estate litigation. (And while it's not the same type of case exactly, a person who also and reputably handles tenant-side representation in landlord-tenant cases as part of their practice would be a good sign to me for a variety of reasons, including that they will not see the amount at issue as small potatoes.)

Good luck.
posted by LadyInWaiting at 1:54 PM on September 5, 2023 [9 favorites]

In the contract, the former owner stated that the house needed a new sewer line (because of tree roots, they said) complete with an estimate from a local plumber for $8000. They were going to do it on settlement. We negotiated having me do that instead for a $10K price break. I had the line snaked and a cleanout put in instead and it has never been a problem

I think it's really going to be hard to go after things the seller did not disclose to you when you failed to act on the things the seller did disclose. You got a 10K break on the price to fix that line and you pocketed it.

IANAL, but I really don't see anything else in your description that shows the seller tried to deceive you. The inspection is the point where you get carte blanche access to the house to look in every cupboard and bring in your experts to look at foundation and plumbing and etc.

If you get a whole-home inspector, who is going to give a pretty superficial overview of the house, you get what you pay for. I've been in your position and I've learned the hard way that you call in a plumber every. single. time. and get the sewer lines inspected with a video camera. You get a structural expert in if the house is 80 years old and propped up on cinder blocks.

I agree that a lawyer might find something to go after, given enough work, but I also think the contract you entered for the purchase will pretty much prevent you from getting very far. I'm sorry you're in this position. You'll find a way out.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:54 PM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

IMO, most of the stuff you have replaced are completely normal maintenance that you would have to do over the course of owning a home: stove, roof, furnace, hot water heater, etc. The big stuff: sewer, plumbing, electrical panel sucks but an old enough house will need all that too.

Also, plywood is subflooring. Do you mean no joists or something, to mount the plywood to? The best plywood for subflooring has tongue and groove to make it really level and tightly connected across multiple pieces, but often under carpet they used non-tongue and groove because you can't even tell under a carpet pad and they built houses pretty lazily in the olden days.

In most houses, plumbing is hidden behind (often non-removable) stuff. Also sucks, but that's very common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:01 PM on September 5, 2023 [9 favorites]

and the home inspector completely missed or ignored multiple issue

So here's the thing. A very large item is being sold on commission. Both the buyer's and seller's agents are already spending the money in their heads, deal's practically done. Now, you're a "home inspector", and here's these two assholes with a little money to burn - more that you're going to get from Eager McHomebuyer - if everything goes smoothly. All the laws happened to be crafted to protect you and the agents, not the homebuyer, almost like some kind of very powerful lobby was involved, hmm. What you choose to do in this situation, as an inspector, depends on character alone.

I will never ever buy a house again without figuring out how to solve for this problem and having what I'm guessing is several thousand dollars to pay my own individual experts to actually inspect and report to me, before I proceed and potentially walk away and have to do all that again on the next offer. I got fooled once, I won't do it again.

Your recourse here is slim. You can't prove any of the above, you can't prove the owners knew anything. Too long has passed. I know people who've had their lives ruined by money pit houses and trying to sue just made them more ruined.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:01 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

What you choose to do in this situation, as an inspector, depends on character alone.

In real life, the inspector gets paid either way. In this fanfic, the inspector gets paid either way, but I guess they rub their hands together and go "muahhahahaha", or something?
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 2:19 PM on September 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

Most of this sounds within the realm of what happens when you buy a house and accept an inspection report that includes things like being unable to check the foundation, unfortunately. And I think your expectations may have been off the mark - I live in a fairly low cost of living area in a cheaper house than most of the ones around me, and my roof alone would have eaten up a solid chunk of $30k. Living in a 1950s house myself, I can’t imagine that was ever a reasonable expectation for a decade’s worth of home repair, even if everything had been in the shape you thought it was in.

That said, if there’s anything you can *prove* the sellers knew, not “must have known” but absolutely knew and put in writing somewhere, that would probably be worth taking to a lawyer to talk about statutes of limitations and whether you have any recourse for those items.
posted by Stacey at 2:20 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

but I guess they rub their hands together and go "muahhahahaha", or something

No, they tell you the house is great and you buy it, so the agents get their commission and move on to the next buyer, for which they'll be glad to recommend a great inspector.

You can look this stuff up, you know, instead of accusing people of making things up, this is a known consumer vulnerability. Not just BBB complaints, yelp reviews (harried housebuyers are bad about not checking reviews), google "can I sue my inspector". Contractors have all kinds of stories. It's a shitty, shitty business, probably up there with moving companies for comfortably-protected scams.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:28 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

To be honest, this does not sound like an unreasonable list of incidents in homeownership over 5 years.

Homeownership can get very expensive. It’s often seen as a super safe investment, but that doesn’t mean it comes without risk.

Fwiw we also bought a house with murky foundation issues, only to be later told that it “required” a foundation replacement, which we have decided not to replace. (It’s made it this long…) We thought the roof would last another 5 years when we bought it, but we couldn’t get homeowners insurance based on the roof condition and had to rush to replace within 2 months of purchasing. So I feel your pain.
posted by samthemander at 2:28 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think you should get a pro opinion, if only for peace of mind. Make chart of the different milestones and let a lawyer in Oregon tell you if this is still within the applicable statute of limitations.* It would also be good to know whether anyone else has filed similar suits against any of the involved parties. Legal Aid Services of Oregon's find your local office tool (though most of the real-estate related matters on the site are tenants' rights issues); examples of Portland, Oregon law firms practicing real estate litigation and mediation.

*for instance, Archambault v. Ogier, Oregon Court of Appeals: Plaintiffs purchased real property from defendants. Nearly six years later, when plaintiffs discovered what they believed to be a variety of defects in the physical condition of the premises, they initiated this action for "breach of contract," alleging that defendants had failed to deliver the property in the condition described in an earnest money agreement and in a disclosure statement. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that the action is time-barred. According to defendants, the action actually is one for misrepresentation, which is subject to a two-year statute of limitations. The trial court agreed and entered summary judgment dismissing the complaint. Plaintiffs appeal, arguing that the trial court erred in concluding that the action is time-barred. We agree with plaintiffs and reverse and remand.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:31 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just one datapoint - when I bought a house and had a home inspection, I reviewed the inspector's contract - it had so many disclaimers about what the inspector was not certifying, it honestly seemed like the whole exercise was not worthwhile. For example, I remember that the contract disclaimed any duty to identify problems inside walls, because the inspector cannot see inside the walls - I mean, fine, but that's a lot of territory to exclude!
posted by Mid at 2:38 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

While everything you've described is indeed frustrating, none of it strikes me as indicating something illegal or even atypical. I'm obviously not privy to your home inspection report but it is extremely likely that it includes a legally binding contract that includes things like the intention of the inspection and its scope; the liability of the inspector; the time period in which you can pursue legal action; things like that, which are likely also in your purchase agreement. You should review those documents.
posted by sm1tten at 2:38 PM on September 5, 2023

That said, if there’s anything you can *prove* the sellers knew

Stacey makes a good point, and I saw this happen first-hand.

Long story but it goes like this: neighbors sold the house, new owners got a flooded basement with the first spring rains. Big loss. We were all talking in the middle of the street one summer afternoon and the new owners mentioned the flood, and that the owners never disclosed any leaks (as one tends to do). Perhaps they didn't know about it?

One neighbor instantly lit up and said "oh yeah, they knew about it, they had a flood the year before and all their stuff was on the curb, waterlogged". NOW there was something to pursue, and the new owners did. Took a few years but they won a lawsuit.

So maybe talk to your neighbors. Maybe the sellers said something to someone about the foundation issues? That might be an open door.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:39 PM on September 5, 2023 [6 favorites]

Just for perspective, the National Association of Realtors, the origanization that many have called a cartel, will tell you in their newsletter that annual maintenance costs about 1% of a home's value. It is safe to say that represents the most rosy picture possible. The median home price in your area is just shy of $500K, so $5K annually, $25K over 5 years is probably low. If your house is older than the median, your expenses are probably higher.

Or another way to look at it is that the depreciation for an apartment building is 30 years. Basically everything except the land needs to be replaced every 30 years. You could argue that's perhaps too fast, but it implies $83K in maintenance over 5 years.

As the other comments suggest, it's going to be very hard to argue that most of those items were there, and the seller knew, and caused you to have to replace them early. And even if you had smoking-gun type evidence, a lawyer is going to take 30-40% of what anything you recover and it will take years. Some family members had a pretty cut-and-dried case that the seller knew about a serious sewer problem (in Portland, actually). The city inspector's report revealed the issue. They did successfully sue but it took like 9 months to work everything out and weren't made whole anyway. I really think the best case scenario here is not going to be what you want, very unfortunately.
posted by wnissen at 2:43 PM on September 5, 2023

I bought a house and the roof leaked through the crawlspace and into the dining room during a rainstorm. On our first night living in the house (about a month after closing). The leak formed overnight and the water sat on the newly refinished hardwood floors for long enough that the edges warped a bit, the ceiling was damaged, and of course it was clear the roof needed replacement.

The inspector had said the roof was old and would likely need replacing within a few years, but the sellers did not disclose anything about active leaks.

But upon further inspection it was clear the ceiling of the dining room had been painted to cover water stains. So we reached out to our real estate attorney. He said he would pursue it if we wanted to, but that these kinds of cases are very difficult to prove and turn into a "he-said/she-said" where you don't recoup anything and end up further in the hole for lawyer fees. It's hard to prove the water stains weren't a different leak that was repaired; the storm that led to the leak was a record-breaking rain, so they could claim that spot never leaked with normal rains; etc., etc.

Anyway, we replaced the roof on our own dime and moved on. It doesn't sound like you have proof that would substantiate bringing a suit let alone winning one, unfortunately. Plus the amount of time that has passed gives them even more wiggle room. But reaching out to an attorney could confirm for you just what is needed for a disclosure case.
posted by misskaz at 2:45 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think both of these things are true:

1. Owning a home can include a lot of expenses, including anticipated and unanticipated, and some of these things (like replacing a roof and appliances) are predictable, even if we try to put them off. It's perhaps the case that the price you got is because of all these problems, you know?

2. This has been incredibly stressful for you, mentally and financially. A consultation with a lawyer is not going to cost nearly as much as you've spent on all this, and it'll let you know either way whether this is worth pursuing. So you are paying for the time and insight, to end your rumination either way.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:40 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've bought a few houses, and one of the best tips I learned was not to go with the whole-house inspection. After I looked into it, it became very clear that the inspector is only liable for something like the fee that you paid to hire him, or perhaps it was double that. Anyway, he's liable for something like $1000, basically. Also, whole-house inspectors typically don't move/disturb/open things, so they're often unable to assess what you'd most like assessed. As far as I'm concerned, if you know a little bit about houses, a home inspection is only a bit better than pointless.

Since that point, whenever I have bought a house, I have hired specialist experts for an hour apiece to inspect potential houses - in other words, an electrician, a plumber, a structural engineer, someone to scope the sewer, a roofer, sometimes an arborist, etc. (The structural engineer is the most important, as far as I'm concerned: we, too, know from experience that foundation issues bleed tens of thousands of dollars faster than anything else. A structural inspection saved us from buying a house that needed 75k in structural work, and sounds like it would have saved almost that much for you.) For me, this series of specialist inspections cost about double what a home inspection cost, it was a bit difficult to set up within the inspection period, and sellers sometimes don't like it, but it was well worth the cost and irritation. If you do it during the inspection period, you can typically negotiate more off the cost of the house because you get a more comprehensive list of what is wrong with the house, and exactly what the right expert thinks it would cost to fix (rather than just the musings of a generalist inspector). And even if you can't negotiate as much as you'd like off the house, you at least have a better sense of what you're getting into, which, as you've found, is invaluable.

Obviously that ship has sailed, for you, but if you ever buy another house, I think this is a really useful tip. As others have said, I think it's highly unlikely you'll have any success pursuing the previous owners. Especially after this amount of time, it's going to be extremely hard to prove that they knew about these problems. It's really hard to prove that at all, no matter the time elapsed, frankly, unless you have a lucky break like JoeZydeco's example. For instance, we were in a mess with a money-pit Victorian that the previous owner didn't disclose lots of stuff about (no heat to one room, actively leaking roof, spongy bathroom floors, etc.): we had only recently bought it, and the counsel we received suggested it would be difficult bordering on impossible to prove that the previous owner definitely knew about these problems, even when he presumably must have. I'm hugely in favor of property as an investment, but it's important to keep in mind that there's a larger level of risk involved than, say, buying in an index fund. It's more akin to buying 500k of one specific stock without any inside knowledge of the company. And sometimes, that can go south. Your experience to me sounds bad, but not completely out of the ordinary, especially for an older house. I agree that budgeting 30k for a decade of repairs sounds very low, especially for a house that you knew needed a fair amount of work (30k often barely does a roof). I think that rather than looking backwards at the sale and the previous owner, it would make more sense to focus your energy forward. It might make sense to sell: the market is still very hot in many places in the US, and even with the problems disclosed, you might not do as badly as you fear, and the silver lining is that, with most of the US property markets having surged since 2018, perhaps you'll break even (or at least break even after you consider not having paid rent).
posted by ClaireBear at 5:07 PM on September 5, 2023 [16 favorites]

mygothlaundry: in case it makes you feel any better (perhaps misery does love company!), my husband and I spent our first night in our current house shop-vacuuming feces-water out of our basement. Literally our very first night, literally shop-vaccing feces-water out. I had bought a bottle of fizz for us to celebrate home ownership, but we were unfortunately rather less enjoyably occupied. Our horrible town has some kind of retrograde combined rainwater-sewer system, so when it rains, sewage water backs up through the pipes of the town. People have installed backflow valves at their individual houses, which prevent sewage water backflow into the houses. This means that it pushes the sewage water to homes higher up in elevation. Anyway, the seller didn't disclose this issue, and no one managed to catch it in inspection, so we were left to remove sewage water until we too spent $1500 installing a backflow valve in the basement. I guess I say this to exemplify that home ownership is really full of lots of this kind of thing. I'm sympathetic to the time that you've had, but what you describe, over 5 years, doesn't sound completely unreasonable to me.
posted by ClaireBear at 5:17 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, another tip that may be useful if you ever buy another house. If you're touring anything in the fixer-upper genre (anything from a full-blown fixer-upper to something that you think just needs a bit of work), it can be really helpful to get a contractor or two to walk through it with you. I have found this more difficult to arrange than the electrician, plumber, etc. I described above (probably because I wasn't paying the contractor!). But a general contractor can give you a general ballpark of how much it would roughly cost to fix the various issues a house has, if you have a tendency to underestimate the cost (most of us do!). We did this once and it was extremely helpful: it can give you a sense of the maximum price you could afford to pay for the house and still afford to get all the work done that you need on it.
posted by ClaireBear at 5:43 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I do not have advice for you except this: I work at the Oregon State Bar and we have a Lawyer Referral Service. We can get you a consultation with a real estate attorney for $35. If you would like a referral, visit www.oregonstatebar.org. If you don't see the referral link on the right sidebar, click on "for the public" a the top left and it should take you to the right page.
posted by tacodave at 5:45 PM on September 5, 2023 [12 favorites]

First, I am really sorry you are dealing with all of this, it sounds just terrible.

Second, I agree with everyone saying that talking to a lawyer is cheap given the overall situation. Between family stuff and work (where my job now has me occasionally working with lawyers), I've had far more interaction with lawyers in the last three years than in all the previous years of my life. Contrary to all the cheap and mean jokes about lawyers, I've been incredibly impressed with the lawyers I've worked with in terms of getting solid answers to complicated questions. A consult with someone knowledgeable will tell you if there is a hope there or not.

Third, to this in your question: I thought, when I bought it, that I was probably looking at around $30,000 in eventual repairs over the next decade or so

Unfortunately, I don't think that was a realistic expectation. Just your stove, water heater, and roof would probably eat up most or all of that. All these things have lifespans, and it sounds like you bought a place with a long list of deferred maintenance which pushes expenses earlier. The good side of this, to the extent that there is a good side, is that you are taking care of all the deferred maintenance so when you are done you'll have a house in great shape.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm so sorry you're going through this.

It doesn't sound like you would have a case against either the agent or the inspector, because they're both no doubt covered by watertight contracts that let them off the hook for any and all outcomes. I'd be surprised if you have a case against the seller because proving they actually knew about issues and didn't disclose them will be almost impossible. If nothing else, they'll likely point the finger at the agent and claim that if there was any lack of disclosure it wasn't them that concealed the issues. In any case, I'd be surprised if the sale contract didn't make it clear that you were responsible for ensuring appropriate inspections and that the seller and agent made no guarantee as to the condition of the property.

It's definitely worth talking to a lawyer, though, if only to settle your mind about whether or not you have any case and, if so, what it would cost you. At least then you don't have that part to wonder and worry about anymore.
posted by dg at 7:10 PM on September 5, 2023

I don't have anything to add from a legal / engineering point view that hasn't already been covered, but from an accounting / finance perspective, we depreciate homes over 30 years more or less, which means that from an accounting point of view, a home built in 1950 would be worth zero by 1980 and what you're buying past that point is just the value of the land and incidental value of a building that just happens to be there.

Same applies for cars, we use about 8 years for total depreciation. Desktop computer, 4 years. Laptop, 2 years.

That's not to say you can't find buyers for those used products, and they could even get some good use out of them for many years yet. But the reality is, those product were never meant to last beyond that point, and if they do, it's just good luck they were so long lasting. Not that it's bad luck that they broke down past that point.
posted by xdvesper at 10:48 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Accounting depreciation schedules are made up by accountants (and often variable in term) not actual assessments of any particular specific product's value as it ages. They are not real useful here. Also don't fully depreciated assets stay on the balance sheet until salvage/sale value is determined?
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:49 AM on September 6, 2023

It sounds to me like there are some expectations you had that may have been unrealistic.

Your inspection report told you that the foundation had not been inspected. That was the time to insist on getting it actually evaluated. You cannot hold anyone else responsible for a bad outcome related to what they told you up front they didn't do; this one is on you, I'm afraid. The sellers told you you needed a new sewer line, credited you money for it, and you chose not to replace it. No one owes you money for that choice.

When you buy a house, you're not buying brand-new everything ready for decades. House parts, just like cars and bodies, wear out. This happens over a long timescale, years, and it's natural but naive to look at something (stove, panel, surface plumbing) and assume it's fine now and will forever be fine. The inspection report can only verify that the thing works on the day they looked at it. They sometimes note the age of an appliance. That's it, it's not a guarantee that the thing will last forever. House sales are "as-is", and it's up to you to evaluate what that means.

Repair people ALL say things akin to "this should have have been better, if *I* had done it I wouldn't have .......". This is a macho sales tactic. It is meant to give you confidence in their judgement and skills, or displaces blame when they can't totally fix it, and it also makes you feel like you can blame someone else for the problem. None of those is necessarily true. If someone is too heavy-handed with this tactic, I mistrust *them*, not the previous owners who also didn't look behind closed cabinets.

You mention expecting to spend $30k over 10 years. That's $3k a year. That's .... not going to go very far, and is more in line with what you should expect to spend on minor maintenance a year, not on major reno or repair.

I can't say I would be looking for a lawyer given what you've told us.
posted by Dashy at 8:04 AM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just as a anecdata point, I bought an older house about 5 years ago and have budgeted/spent about $5-10,000 per year on repairs/upgrades. Basically a mix of one planned replacement due to wear (e.g., new gutters) and one unexpected appliance death (e.g., washer).
posted by TwoStride at 8:13 AM on September 6, 2023

For a somewhat substantiated data point (as in, based on national data but may not be reflective of your situation), the NYT has an article based on a study of home ownership costs. Here are the key paragraphs:

To arrive at its results, the study assumed 13.2 years of homeownership — about how often U.S. homes typically change hands — and a 30-year-fixed-rate mortgage at 2022’s average rate, 5.26 percent. (Rates have since topped 7 percent.) It used the Zillow Home Value Index to find the average value of the most common home size — a three-bedroom at $355,892 — and assumed a down payment of 13 percent, the national median at the time the research was done. With a down payment of that size, lenders typically require P.M.I. until 20 percent equity is reached, so that was included too.

So, that average-value three-bedroom home ended up requiring an outlay of about $623,290 over 13.2 years of ownership. Mortgage payments alone accounted for $270,593 of that, with maintenance and repairs adding up to $192,139. Utility payments came out to $54,662, surpassing the initial down payment of $46,266.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:00 AM on September 7, 2023 [1 favorite]