'Rigorous' inspections becoming de rigueur

Q: My buddy bought this incredible house on the beach for more than $1 million. It was really stunning and had awesome views -- he fell in love with it at first sight, and closed the deal pretty quickly. He did have inspections by a contractor friend the seller was able to get to come out really fast.

My friend bought the house in the summertime, but when it started to rain, the rain literally poured inside the house. In the course of getting the roof replaced, he started to discover all these other issues wrong with the place that the seller had to have known about and concealed, including the fact that the whole foundation has some kind of dry mold issue. To make a long story short, the place needs to be torn down.

My friend actually sued the seller and got a good judgment, but the seller won't pay and now my friend is in the hole $50,000 for attorneys' fees and is living in a rented apartment while he lets the house go back to the bank because it's not livable and he can't afford the repairs. I'm about to buy my first home, too -- what can I do to avoid that situation?

A: Fortunately, it's actually pretty rare that a seller will go to such lengths to conceal such a major problem. It's much more likely for there to be a problem with the property that the sellers are unaware of. Hence, my short answer to your question: Get rigorous inspections.

While, for the most part, properties that have been poorly maintained have an apparent air of poor maintenance about them, it is totally possible to have a pristine-looking property come up with big-time problems.

I once had a client in contract to buy a home that had been gutted to the studs -- the interior was so new the windows, appliances and shower doors still had sticker tags on them. In what some folks thought was a waste of money, we had inspections anyway, and discovered that the entire foundation was entirely rotten. The repair bid? $120,000. Inspections seem like a lot of money out of pocket at a time when cash is tight, but who in their right mind wouldn't spend $750 to save $120,000 and months or years of headache and heartache?

But recall, my advice was not just to get inspections, but to get rigorous inspections. That means to use an inspector who is not some crony of the seller. Work with an inspector who is referred by a friend of yours or, even better, by your Realtor. The inspectors I work with frequently know that not only are they accountable to my clients, they are accountable to me -- and I'm fiercely protective of my clients' interests. ...CONTINUED

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