DIYbanter - View Single Post - Prospects of selling a house next door to a "reformed" spree killer?

krw[_3_]

In article ,
says...
"krw" wrote
Laws may not *allow* the realtor to disclose such even if they are aware
of
it. The home owner may or may not be required to disclose such, rather
area
dependant on disclosure laws.

Nonsense. It *is* public information.

I never said it wasn't. What your area (state) requires may match another
or may not be the same. I advised to look up the laws for the area
involved. Normally pretty easy to find.

You did when you said, "Laws may not *allow* the Realtor to
disclose...". It is perfectly legal to "disclose" public
information.

In my area for example, folks selling are advised to 'not disclose' as
you
can't be sued later for anything that comes up. If you do 'disclose' you
can be sued even years later for just about anything even if you can
prove
you did NOT know about it (obviously hard to prove such, and wont save
you
here).

You certainly do live in a strange world. We had a lengthy
disclosure form to fill out that went through the entire house. I
looked at it as a good thing. As long as I answered the questions
honestly there was nothing to come back after me for, though that
wouldn't stop an ambulance chaser.

Just wierd to me, but got same info from several realtors. I do not live in
a 'must disclose' state.

It is *not* uncommon. I've had to do it twice now, in different
states. The last one was *very* strict. Agents get sued for non-
disclosure all the time, even though there was no way they *could*
have known. ...even if the homeowner obviously did, the agent gets
sued (deep pockets).

'Technically' my house was bought 'non-disclosed' but folks have a way
here
of working out basic stuff 'off the record'. Seller for example quietly
warned us that with a house built in 1963, it was largely code-spec to
1963
and that future work, depending on what it was, would sometimes entail
additional costs. He was real careful to explain the back room was
codespec
only to 'enclosed porch' for example and now we understand why ;-).
Reality
is at the time it was a rental bedroom for a roomate, bed and all. It's
a
'legal thing' to call my home a 3BR 1.5 bath, vice a 4 BR 1.5 bath. Had
he
tried to market it as a 4 BR officially, he would have been required to
pay
to bring that enclosure to codespec of the time for a BR.

My house had a building permit and CO as a two bedroom[*] house,
even though there were clearly three. Before I could even put it on
the market I had to get the permit and CO "upgraded" to three
bedrooms. It cost me $3500, for nothing but paper and five minutes
of the town clerk's time.

I'm not sure what the costs would have been in 1995 to bring it up to code,
only an estimate in 2007 that was very open ended as in 'we expect to find
more'. Of what I can recall besides the roof having to go up was the slab
had to be raised to level to the rest of the house (it's a 1.5 inch or so
drop). I thought that one very odd indeed. They seemed quite happy to make
it with no windows but spec'd out that if it had a window it had to be a
certain size... (The room has 2 doors so the window apparently isnt
required but i already have one bedroom with no windows and 2 doors).

[*] who in their right mind would build (or allow to be built) a two
bedroom 2-1/2 bath house?

Grin, does sound odd!

I didn't grin at the $3500 - for nothing.

--
Keith