On 4/5/13 1:46 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Apr 4, 7:47 pm, "Bill Graham" wrote:
DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Apr 4, 1:57 pm, carson ridder wrote:
On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:36:54 -0700, Oren wrote:
You can't report something you do not know.

I know of someone who was sued, and lost - but then won on appeals,
that they "knew or SHOULD have known" (emphasis mine) that the
80-year-old septic system was about to crumble.

It's a long story, but they reason the lower court said they
'should' have known was that they had it pumped out once in
the five years they owned the 80-year old bungalow.

The travesty of the moronic lower-court judge was overturned by the
higher appellate court, who ruled unanimously that homeowners in that
state (NJ) would never sleep at night after selling a home if they
were subject to the Draconian "should have known" rules that the
lower court had arbitrarily decided upon.

In hindsight, it's clear that the judge, who was being reprimanded
for other grievances, was trying to make a name for herself.
Luckily, the system worked - albeit it was slow - painful - and
expensive to overturn the rulings of a judge who had her own
agenda.

So, after about two years of the slow legal process, everything
was set right (except, of course, legal costs - which were a loss
on one side as the other side was on a pay-if-you-win situation.

What lesson would the OP learn from this?

To each his own, but, to me, the lesson for the OP is:
* Better to disclose what you know, than to fight it in court later.

While I tend to agree, disclosing things that don't (legally) need to
be disclosed can cost money that otherwise might not have been spent.

I can imagine a buyer saying "replace the sewer pipe or I'm walking".
That's many thousands of dollars for a repair that might otherwise not
be needed, especially if it wasn't flagged during the inspection.

If something gets disclosed then by definition, it's a "problem" and
needs to be dealt with to the buyer's satisfaction.

I spent the years between 1940 and 1950 in Lynbrook, New York. (on Long
Island) We had cesspools dug in our front lawns. these were bottle shaped
chambers about 15 feet deep by 10 feet in diameter, with concrete covers
aroud 4 feet in diameter and a couple of feet under the lawn that were lined
with concrete blocks with popenings through them for water to seep through.
All of our sewage went into these things, and they were pumped out
periodically when they got full and didn;t work any more. The trucks that
pumped them out brought the sewage to a treatment plant somewhere, just as
sewer systems today take it through pipes to these same plants. At the
plant, it received, "primary" treatment before it was pumped into the ocean
where, (supposedly) it didn't harm the environment.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

..and this little story applies to the current thread ...wait for
it... how?

Some people have a problem providing too much disclosure. The
appropriate response is "Thanks for sharing."