Eefah! Well the low moment that our broker warned us about has arrived. When we had the inspection done in late January they didn't turn the water on (the house had been winterized and they didn't want to turn it on and then have it freeze and they didn't think to trun it back off again) saying they would turn it on just prior to closing.
We sensed two things: i) a rat; and ii) some penny pinching as we're paying them a few hundred thousand dollars and they're balking at $100 to get the plumber back out to turn off the water and drain the system.
Anyhoo - the sisters executing the sale for their parents were back up this past week to clear the house of all the furniture and had the water turned back on. We had the water inspection on Monday 2/20. The highlight of which was the mystery 5" diameter open pipe that disappeared into the garage floor. Two smaller daimeter pipes rested on the lip and drained water from the master bath shower and 2nd bath bath tub. but to where did they drain that was the question. Clearly not into the sewer as they should have. Now, I;m no plumbing expert but this set-up was decidedly dodgey and most likely a through back to when the house was on a septic.
The inspection report came back saying that these pipes drained to a footing drain (i.e. near the foundation of the house - gee is that why they have a sump pump?) and that they needed to be hooked up to the main sewer. This was communicated to our broker, the seller's broker was in agreement that it needed to be done. By Thursday he was out at the house with the seller's daughter and a plumber who also said it needed to be done. So the seller said "we'll book the plumber for Friday" (when we were meant to be doing the final walk-thru') "but we won't pay for it". So that opened up a whole exchange between the brokers and us and us and the lawyers with the seller's alwyer saying that he couldn't belive the whole deal was going to fall thru' over $450!
Unfortunately it was communicated during this exchange that the seller's we're threatening to put the house back on the market. Irrespective of hte fact that we had a signed contract with a cluase that we had added saying we could sue the life out of them if the seller's backed out but apparently this didn't phase them. We think what really happened was that they came to clear the house, saw a house on the market at the end of the street (which needless to say was 2x the plot size, 400 sq. ft smaller and in move-in condition), saw that it was on the market for $75,000 more than they sold the house to us for and tried to figure out a way to get the house back thinking now that it was empty of furniture they could repaint and get more money. Plus now we are in the selling season and not the mid-winter.
Too bad - should've thought about that 8 months ago when it first went on the market. They put the house on the market with 20 year old paint on the walls, a dirty, dusty cobwebby house (at least after 7 mths it was), packed with furniture and needing a new kitchen and they ex[ect to get top dollar. Not gonna happen and the 11th hour is not the time to be second-guessing that.
Our attorney advised us to delay the closing (set for Friday at 2:30pm) but I pushed him to be less knee-jerk and more looking for a remedy to ensure that the closing did not have to be moved.Fortunately for us - the brokers worked out a remedy and the plumbing was done and we closed as planned.
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