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Obligations on house sold

popeda
11 years ago

House closed early July, preceded by some surprising inspection issues. One was that the inspector saw some "ruffling of shingles on the roof." The buyers turned the inspection issues over to their builder friend representative, and we got a relative who had been in roofing business over 30yr. to assess the roof. The two men agreed that the problem with the roof, less than 6yr. old with 30yr. asphalt shingles, was confined to half the roof. The buyers signed off on that and a short list of repairs we agreed to make. The roof was by far the most costly. We had half the roof torn off and replaced new and were lucky that my brother knew a crew down here that could do that. No warranty was given or implied, but the buyers' representative was on site and thoroughly inspected both the new roof going on and the old part of the roof which appeared good, sealed down, etc.

The weather has slightly cooled, and a dozen shingles fell from the roof. Both our guy and their guy were mistaken: the entire roof should have been replaced. But both acted in good faith, believing the sealed down part of the roof to be secure.

We feel that our "position" in this is that an agreement was made on what to do, we went to the limit of our funds and willingness to do it in good faith, and that our responsibility for the roof ends there. My husband, feeling for the elderly neighbor, did offer to repair the shingles that fell, but she more or less hung up on us and said her son-in-law, the actual buyer of the home, would take care of this.

We are concerned because not only is he very wealthy, he has long experience with lawsuits. We have not heard from him (Sunday morning).

Are we done with this house, or does our responsibility somehow run past closing?

Comments (12)

  • brickeyee
    11 years ago

    You are done.

  • chispa
    11 years ago

    Do not talk to the elderly neighbor and the son-in-law. If they call tell them to have their agent contact your agent. Go through the proper channels. Make it difficult for them to try to guilt you into paying for something that is a done deal.

  • Linda
    11 years ago

    You are not obligated to do anything. Dont talk to anyone about it. You're done!

  • popeda
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Spoke to our realtor (who also represented them) and she said they were confused that the shingles had fallen from the new part of the roof and might be in warranty (credit a nosy neighbor for that one).

    DH saw that lady's DD and SIL were in the drive, so he went down to assure them the shingles came from the older side, the side we had agreed could remain in place. They said they realized that now. The SIL said for my DH not to worry about putting the shingles back in place, he was getting a roofer (we suspect his builder representative, but don't know that) to look it over today.

    We passed this on to realtor and told her we were going to refer the matter to her so she could explain the agreement they signed,etc.

    We hope this ends here, but his track record would indicate otherwise.

  • daveho
    11 years ago

    Why are you still communicating with these people? You owe them nothing. You are however giving the SIL the impression he can get something out of you if he pushes hard enough.

  • ncrealestateguy
    11 years ago

    Why is a 6 year old roof failing?

  • popeda
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    We think it was shingle failure.

  • kirkhall
    11 years ago

    By you continuing to communicate with them, you are implying that you will help them out in some way with this. STOP IT RIGHT NOW! No more. You can be an nice neighbor, etc, but you don't talk about the old house. Ever. Any more.

  • ncrealestateguy
    11 years ago

    Warranty?

  • popeda
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Maker of shingle has plenty of dodgy language, limits their liability to $100 after you jump through hoops. They want to blame installation; there's a problem with that, we self-installed. The vendor wants the maker to cover it, blah blah. It's unreal the way most of our warranties and guarantees are written now. We got one of those home warranty things at closing; almost new microwave goes out, but not covered because it was in a microwave cabinet, not "installed" above the stove. But I digress.

  • littleprincess
    11 years ago

    Honestly, I wouldn't expect a home warranty to cover a microwave! Most on the counter microwaves are what? $60 to $100 to replace?

    We were very thankful to have the home warranty when the piping under our sink started leaking and they just came and fixed it. No problems.

  • rafor
    11 years ago

    2 months after selling a previous house, our realtor calls and says that the new owner found a water leak and her bedroom carpet was all wet (bath and bedroom shared a wall with a closet in between). I said what leak, we never had a leak (this was a brand new build about a year old). Realtor said new owner, young and first time homeowner was all upset and her Dad was flying in to look at it. New owner said her insurance would not cover it since they said it was a pre-existing condition. She had a home inspection before buying and no leak was noticed by the inspector. So neither inspector nor insurance will help her. Told realtor it's wasn't our problem. Never heard another word about it.

    Quit talking to them. Let them go through channels if they want to pursue it.