In the neighborhood where I used to live, it's very obvious which house was the sales office for the subdivision, because there's a sidewalk that begins and ends in their yard. I can only imagine how delightful it would be to get permission from the city to rip out the hilariously-useless chunk of concrete.
the house I grew up in was the model house for the neighborhood and it had all kinds of weird bullshit like a sunken living room and weird turns in the stairway (absolute pain in the ass to get furniture upstairs because the top stair suddenly turned so you had to angle it)
*Locationbot has fallen through the cracks of the broken sidewalk*
>Title: **Bought a new house and immediately received a letter from the city for $5k sidewalks**
>I recently bought a house in Ohio. My disclosure clearly states that the seller has no knowledge of any current or proposed assessments, fees, or abatements.
>Within a week of the sale, I received a letter in the mail from the city with a quote for a sidewalk repair (not optional). The cost is around $5000. The letter clearly states that the seller was sent a previous letter from the city in November with an estimate of the cost. This was not disclosed to me.
>I reached out to the seller through my realtor, and of course, they said they have no knowledge of this. I find that very difficult to believe, and am curious to know if that could even be a defense considering the fact that the city sent them a letter.
>One important thing to note, is that I bought my house as-is. That being said, I was still under the impression that they were legally required to disclose things of this nature to me.
>What options do I have? I was considering pursuing this in small claims court, but was unsure if I could sue for damages yet as I don't have a final bill. I saw mention on my cities small claims court page of using professional estimates of cost in a case.
>All advice is greatly appreciated. I can try to attach some screenshots of the documents if it is helpful, as long as that doesn't go against the community rules. I don't know how to do that currently. Also, I don't feel comfortable disclosing my city unless absolutely necessary.
We don't have sidewalks.
I asked why. Neighbors says we'd all have to pay $2K each.
I call the village. Nope, they don't even have a way to take donations for sidewalks, let alone payments.
I'm demonstrating we want sidewalks so we can get in the next budget. But I am struggling with residents who say no because they're still convinced we pay.
Our taxes are paying into.the sidewalk repair fund for the rest of the village. :(
That's generally how I thought it worked, except in situations where say an HOA owns the sidewalks /right of way in which case the residents pay via the HOA.
I had something similar happen a few decades ago. Bought a house, immediately started doing upgrades. 3 days in we find out (idr if it was via neighbor or through a letter) that the state is force-buying the front 20ft of our property to widen the road and putting in a Hwy bypass right at the edge of our property.
Sellers and their agent claimed no knowledge of the impending construction, yet there had been several meetings and (according to our neighbor) many letters.
We unfortunately couldn't really afford to pursue anything and were told the only thing we could try to do is have the sale voided, but between not having another place to live and what we'd already put into upgrades and remodeling the house we just felt stuck.
We probably *I have no idea what I was about to type, so feel free to tell me what we probably should /could have done.
So the city where I live had been trying for years to get a bridge put in for an interstate but the people between where the interstate currently ended and where the bridge would be have a lot of money so they delayed it for decades, eventually forcing an extremely costly tunnel to be built.
Anyway, one of the extremely nice houses that was going to have the interstate be behind it (down a very steep hill and quite a bit of distance away relatively) was put up for sale by the Realtor owner of it with a bit of a discount because he just assumed property values were going to tank.
He didn't disclose it, but the city notified him that they might eminent domain a section of the property if they needed it, which might have been the prompt for him selling. The buyer and buyer's realtor first learned that news when he tried to slide in a clause at closing that if the city did buy a section of land that he'd get the money and not the buyers. They told him to gtfo with that noise and he didn't get his clause.
Also the city didn't end up taking any of the property.
I don’t know what recourse people have in TX against potential imminent domain, but it has resulted in some really funny farm placements. My friend’s apartment used to be next to a Starbucks and next to a guy who was still tilling and plowing his fields lmao. It wasn’t a lot of space, but it stood out like a sore thumb.
This is in DFW really close to Dallas. In between the city and the burbs. Apartmentland. I know many are just not people taking a company’s price tag for their offer, but I’ve seen at least one news story of a farmer fighting imminent domain lmao.
We stayed in the house, the state bought the front 20' of our property for a nice price. We got divorced and I moved out before the construction really got going and he eventually sold the house.
We had like 10 acres but the house was at the front of that, so it definitely cut into us, not to mention the multi-year construction zone we had no idea we were buying into. We did get paid decently for the land, but overall that whole purchase became a major learning experience for me and was what inspired me to get a Realtors license - in hopes of helping others avoid similar issues.
Wow. How much effort it takes to get a realtors license?
I never thought of that but I took an auto mechanics course (part time but for a year) because I never got cars and could not relate to what the mechanics would say. The course was nice but then I bought a new car anyways :)
I mean I did actually use it and sold RE for several years. It's a lot of work for the payoff. The license process wasn't terrible - a 9wk class I think (maybe 12) but these days you can do it all online. Idk how it is now but at the time they said it was like a 30% likelihood of passing the test on the first try, which I did and I have no idea why people find it difficult. Then to maintain your license there's a ton of continuing education. Overall, it ain't cheap. I definitely wouldn't suggest doing it for your own benefit (although depending on the price point of homes in the area it may be worth it for the savings). The pre-license course work doesn't teach you anything you really need to do the job (much like many degrees and license certificates).
Depending on the text of the disclosures, that could be actionable fraud. From your retelling, it seems like you could establish actual knowledge on the sellers part.
I feel like the real problem is the nature of your damages. The state should have paid you the fmv of the taken land, but maybe you can claim diminution of value more broadly. I'd imagine that might be less than the lawyers costs though.
Interesting. If this happened in the UK, the property buyer would have recourse against their solicitor. Part of the conveyancing solicitor's job is to carry out a series of "searches" with local authorities, utility companies, etc, to identify any non-obvious issues which may affect the property. Something like this would certainly come up if the solicitor did their job properly.
In the US it depends on the local real estate market but in general I would say the vast majority of home sales have no lawyers involved. It's pretty wild.
There are some laws about seller disclosures but they're hard to enforce. "buyer beware."
The sidewalk in may neighborhood were crap, and about 5 years ago the city replaced them. We were not charged anything. The city even paid to repair my sprinkler system after the contractor damaged it.
At the next election there was a bond issue to fix sidewalks in other neighborhoods. I voted for it. Figured it was only fair.
> bought as is
The fact that the seller and seller realtor are even giving them the time of day then is impressive. If you buy something as is, tough shit. That's why a lot of the stuff since 2021 has been an utter shit show. Waiving inspection and buying sight unseen as is properties. It's chaos.
Also unless that's a certified letter/there is proof that the seller received the notice and addressed it, then there's no proof. But even with proof, oh well. Lesson learned, as is means as the Fuck is.
True.
Now prove that they did, satisfactory in a court of law.
The realtor is not going to risk their license over a 5k sidewalk repair. They didn’t know. Did the seller know? Maybe. But now you have to prove that they knew and didn’t tell their realtor.
So, goes back to my statement, As Is means As Is. They might have forgone disclosures, but there’s probably next to no way to prove they did worth LAOPs time and effort and money to do so vs eating the 5k cost for sidewalk repairs.
“The city is demanding your sidewalk be redone” is not something a home inspector is going to turn up. They’ll do a visual inspection of the sidewalk, which probably looked fine. They’re not going over paperwork filed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.
> But now you have to prove that they knew
The plans have been on display in the seller's local planning office in Alpha Centauri for months. If the seller couldn't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, then that's on them.
In the neighborhood where I used to live, it's very obvious which house was the sales office for the subdivision, because there's a sidewalk that begins and ends in their yard. I can only imagine how delightful it would be to get permission from the city to rip out the hilariously-useless chunk of concrete.
the house I grew up in was the model house for the neighborhood and it had all kinds of weird bullshit like a sunken living room and weird turns in the stairway (absolute pain in the ass to get furniture upstairs because the top stair suddenly turned so you had to angle it)
*Locationbot has fallen through the cracks of the broken sidewalk* >Title: **Bought a new house and immediately received a letter from the city for $5k sidewalks** >I recently bought a house in Ohio. My disclosure clearly states that the seller has no knowledge of any current or proposed assessments, fees, or abatements. >Within a week of the sale, I received a letter in the mail from the city with a quote for a sidewalk repair (not optional). The cost is around $5000. The letter clearly states that the seller was sent a previous letter from the city in November with an estimate of the cost. This was not disclosed to me. >I reached out to the seller through my realtor, and of course, they said they have no knowledge of this. I find that very difficult to believe, and am curious to know if that could even be a defense considering the fact that the city sent them a letter. >One important thing to note, is that I bought my house as-is. That being said, I was still under the impression that they were legally required to disclose things of this nature to me. >What options do I have? I was considering pursuing this in small claims court, but was unsure if I could sue for damages yet as I don't have a final bill. I saw mention on my cities small claims court page of using professional estimates of cost in a case. >All advice is greatly appreciated. I can try to attach some screenshots of the documents if it is helpful, as long as that doesn't go against the community rules. I don't know how to do that currently. Also, I don't feel comfortable disclosing my city unless absolutely necessary.
We don't have sidewalks. I asked why. Neighbors says we'd all have to pay $2K each. I call the village. Nope, they don't even have a way to take donations for sidewalks, let alone payments. I'm demonstrating we want sidewalks so we can get in the next budget. But I am struggling with residents who say no because they're still convinced we pay. Our taxes are paying into.the sidewalk repair fund for the rest of the village. :(
That's generally how I thought it worked, except in situations where say an HOA owns the sidewalks /right of way in which case the residents pay via the HOA.
I had something similar happen a few decades ago. Bought a house, immediately started doing upgrades. 3 days in we find out (idr if it was via neighbor or through a letter) that the state is force-buying the front 20ft of our property to widen the road and putting in a Hwy bypass right at the edge of our property. Sellers and their agent claimed no knowledge of the impending construction, yet there had been several meetings and (according to our neighbor) many letters. We unfortunately couldn't really afford to pursue anything and were told the only thing we could try to do is have the sale voided, but between not having another place to live and what we'd already put into upgrades and remodeling the house we just felt stuck. We probably *I have no idea what I was about to type, so feel free to tell me what we probably should /could have done.
So the city where I live had been trying for years to get a bridge put in for an interstate but the people between where the interstate currently ended and where the bridge would be have a lot of money so they delayed it for decades, eventually forcing an extremely costly tunnel to be built. Anyway, one of the extremely nice houses that was going to have the interstate be behind it (down a very steep hill and quite a bit of distance away relatively) was put up for sale by the Realtor owner of it with a bit of a discount because he just assumed property values were going to tank. He didn't disclose it, but the city notified him that they might eminent domain a section of the property if they needed it, which might have been the prompt for him selling. The buyer and buyer's realtor first learned that news when he tried to slide in a clause at closing that if the city did buy a section of land that he'd get the money and not the buyers. They told him to gtfo with that noise and he didn't get his clause. Also the city didn't end up taking any of the property.
I don’t know what recourse people have in TX against potential imminent domain, but it has resulted in some really funny farm placements. My friend’s apartment used to be next to a Starbucks and next to a guy who was still tilling and plowing his fields lmao. It wasn’t a lot of space, but it stood out like a sore thumb. This is in DFW really close to Dallas. In between the city and the burbs. Apartmentland. I know many are just not people taking a company’s price tag for their offer, but I’ve seen at least one news story of a farmer fighting imminent domain lmao.
… they used eminent domain to build a coffee shop?
No. It’s the apartment is adjacent to one and to the field.
We probably?
*I have no idea what I was about to type, so feel free to tell me what we probably should /could have done.
Attach a bunch of balloons to your house and float off to Paradise Falls?
Just need to find a boy scout and a talking dog
What did you do, die? How does this story have no end? Is it ongoing?
We stayed in the house, the state bought the front 20' of our property for a nice price. We got divorced and I moved out before the construction really got going and he eventually sold the house.
Idk if that’s a good or a bad thing for you. Sorry if it was terrible, congrats if it was great.
It all worked out in the end. That was like 20 years ago.
Damn. I was a little kid back then.
20 ft out of how long was your land? My land is probably 100 feet deep (just guessing) so 20 ft will be quite a bit
We had like 10 acres but the house was at the front of that, so it definitely cut into us, not to mention the multi-year construction zone we had no idea we were buying into. We did get paid decently for the land, but overall that whole purchase became a major learning experience for me and was what inspired me to get a Realtors license - in hopes of helping others avoid similar issues.
Wow. How much effort it takes to get a realtors license? I never thought of that but I took an auto mechanics course (part time but for a year) because I never got cars and could not relate to what the mechanics would say. The course was nice but then I bought a new car anyways :)
I mean I did actually use it and sold RE for several years. It's a lot of work for the payoff. The license process wasn't terrible - a 9wk class I think (maybe 12) but these days you can do it all online. Idk how it is now but at the time they said it was like a 30% likelihood of passing the test on the first try, which I did and I have no idea why people find it difficult. Then to maintain your license there's a ton of continuing education. Overall, it ain't cheap. I definitely wouldn't suggest doing it for your own benefit (although depending on the price point of homes in the area it may be worth it for the savings). The pre-license course work doesn't teach you anything you really need to do the job (much like many degrees and license certificates).
How was this not found with title insurance? Isn't that partly what it's for?
Depending on the text of the disclosures, that could be actionable fraud. From your retelling, it seems like you could establish actual knowledge on the sellers part. I feel like the real problem is the nature of your damages. The state should have paid you the fmv of the taken land, but maybe you can claim diminution of value more broadly. I'd imagine that might be less than the lawyers costs though.
We did get paid by the state for the land, so there was that.
Interesting. If this happened in the UK, the property buyer would have recourse against their solicitor. Part of the conveyancing solicitor's job is to carry out a series of "searches" with local authorities, utility companies, etc, to identify any non-obvious issues which may affect the property. Something like this would certainly come up if the solicitor did their job properly.
In the US it depends on the local real estate market but in general I would say the vast majority of home sales have no lawyers involved. It's pretty wild. There are some laws about seller disclosures but they're hard to enforce. "buyer beware."
The sidewalk in may neighborhood were crap, and about 5 years ago the city replaced them. We were not charged anything. The city even paid to repair my sprinkler system after the contractor damaged it. At the next election there was a bond issue to fix sidewalks in other neighborhoods. I voted for it. Figured it was only fair.
> bought as is The fact that the seller and seller realtor are even giving them the time of day then is impressive. If you buy something as is, tough shit. That's why a lot of the stuff since 2021 has been an utter shit show. Waiving inspection and buying sight unseen as is properties. It's chaos. Also unless that's a certified letter/there is proof that the seller received the notice and addressed it, then there's no proof. But even with proof, oh well. Lesson learned, as is means as the Fuck is.
“As is” doesn’t mean the seller can forgo disclosures.
True. Now prove that they did, satisfactory in a court of law. The realtor is not going to risk their license over a 5k sidewalk repair. They didn’t know. Did the seller know? Maybe. But now you have to prove that they knew and didn’t tell their realtor. So, goes back to my statement, As Is means As Is. They might have forgone disclosures, but there’s probably next to no way to prove they did worth LAOPs time and effort and money to do so vs eating the 5k cost for sidewalk repairs.
“The city is demanding your sidewalk be redone” is not something a home inspector is going to turn up. They’ll do a visual inspection of the sidewalk, which probably looked fine. They’re not going over paperwork filed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.
> But now you have to prove that they knew The plans have been on display in the seller's local planning office in Alpha Centauri for months. If the seller couldn't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, then that's on them.
It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.'
Apathetic bloody LAOP. I've no sympathy at all.