Two suggestions:

Immediately, to protect your family's health, hire an expert to
determine if there is any mold that needs attention and to define the
corrective actions necessary to prevent reoccurrence. The Seller has
warned you. To put it in your terms, you have "stupidly" bought a home
without inspecting a disclosed condition, and that may result in some
unexpected expenses in curing it. The "idiot" seller would seem to be
off the hook for those since they disclosed their attempts and their
doubts about the effectiveness of those attempts to cure the problems
present when they bought the house. If the seller is as dumb as you say,
how can you trust his repair work?

Second, as the-plumber said in his response, be aware that the Seller
was correct to disclose More importantly for you, you are now in a
position that when you sell, you need to reveal known or suspected
problems. The fact that you think it is stupid to do so will not protect
you from future liability if you do not. Any Broker involved is also
risking licensure and liability for damages if they do not disclose
known adverse conditions. Some states (Maryland is an example) go so far
as to require that the Broker disclose conditions they SHOULD have
known. The law assumes that Brokers should know more than the homeowner
or the buyer from observed conditions. I heard an experienced Broker
say, the rule in their firm is Disclose! Disclose! Disclose! They are
not going to take the risk for a Seller who wants to hide adverse
conditions.

The bottom line, you may as well cure the problems now and enjoy your
home, because you may not find someone else willing to take it in the
future with known problems as you did, and if turns out that there is
anything serious going on like mold behind your vapor barrier or
drywall, you would have to correct it then to sell it. l


the_plumber wrote:

Michael wrote:

I just moved into a range-style house we just purchased. It is our
first one and is a starter home located in the midwest.



Also in the closing, the seller (stupidly) revealed that when they
moved in 8 years ago, he had to refinish the basement because mold was
growing on the drywall. He claims it is because there was no previous
vapor barrier and that he put in such a barrier so we should have no
such problems (must have been on his mind???). The seller seemed like
an idiot...especially for revealing this in the closing. But now we
know some history...


besides the fact the seller seems honest, disclosure of existing
conditions in a real estate sale is required by law in many if not all
states. maybe the seller thought there -may- still be a problem. btw,
it appears you may be the "stupid" one for not looking into the issue
further before buying.