prior knowledge to mold before selling?
mamma of 4 : ) asked:
i bought a house and we moved in @ 7-10 of this year. well when we moved in it had new flooring in the kitchen. We noticed that the floor was warping well we moved the dishwasher and found that the leak was coming from that. We also found BLACK mold against the back wall. the sellers put new contact paper in the cuboards and as well as under the sink. There is mold there also. My ? is what can i do? Are the pevious owners responible for not diclosing it? my son is also allergic to all molds.
i did have an inspection done. But they had brand new contact paper lining the cupboards.
i bought a house and we moved in @ 7-10 of this year. well when we moved in it had new flooring in the kitchen. We noticed that the floor was warping well we moved the dishwasher and found that the leak was coming from that. We also found BLACK mold against the back wall. the sellers put new contact paper in the cuboards and as well as under the sink. There is mold there also. My ? is what can i do? Are the pevious owners responible for not diclosing it? my son is also allergic to all molds.
i did have an inspection done. But they had brand new contact paper lining the cupboards.
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Why wasn’t an inspection done before you bought?
they would have to have prior knowledge.
So you would have to prove they had prior knowledge.
So Just get the mold taken care of ASAP.
Well the tough part will be proving they knew about it, and since it is behind a dishwasher this will be tough to do. Also where is the home inspector? This is what you pay them 300 or so dollars for. I would be calling him to find out why he missed this, but also tough to prove it didn’t develop after you moved in. If the leak started the week you moved in mold would be well on its way by now, it doesn’t take long. I would just get myself some bleach and scrub the heck out of it. You can remove it yourself and its no big deal. Now if it is behind the walls, well that’s a different story.
It’ll be hard to prove they they knew about it and even harder to prove that it started before you moved in.
Your inspector should have pointed it out, then you would have had cause to back out of the contract or ask them to fix the problem.
ALWAYS get an inspection – they would have caught the leak too. It pays to be prepared.
Hopefully you had either a realtor or a real estate attorney involved in the deal when you bought it. If you did then you could complain to the realtor and they will discuss it with their attorney, pull their records wherein the seller had to state all the problems with the house before they tried to sell it (yes it’s on a document) and if they didn’t disclose it then the seller is in trouble. At any rate you have a good case to sue.
Of course there is proof (and you should take pictures of the mold and keep one set of the pictures and give the other set to your realtor or real estate attorney).
Inspections only view what is visible. For example the inspector may turn on your faucets to see if water comes out of them or if they leak, but he will not tear into the wall to check the pipes.
The mold would have needed to be visible for it to appear on the inspection report. IF the report mentioned floor warping and you did not investigate it further before closing then there may be an argument that the warped floor ( and subsequently the mold) did not matter to you because you did not investigate it further.
What to do: You can hire an attorney that specializes in real estate. You will file suit against anyone who has a pocket, the previous owners, the listing agent, the selling agent and the inspector. Unless you turn up a bill for a mold abatement estimate from the previous owners it is unlikely you will be able to prove they knew. And this suit will cost about $200 per an hour.
Pull the dishwasher, cut out the drywall, fix the leak. put in new drywall, paint, put the dishwasher back. This will cost less than $100.00.
Or call a mold abatement specialist and get an estimate to have the work done. This stuff happens, but I know it doesn’t make it any less aggervating.
Go back and read the Sellers Disclosure Statement and see if there is anything that states whether there were problems with anything or not. A lot of the time the boxes are checked (which is too easy not to verify) but sometimes writing additional comments is found,
Go back to your agent and have him/her request that the other agent speak with the seller and ask him if he knew about anything that could come up or come back to haunt him. Most sellers will talk once the transaction is done so this will be easy to find out. Agents tell agents a few things after the transaction if they ask (know fact).
If your agent finds out the truth,then you can ask that the seller pay for half of the bill when you come to have the mold removed. Other than that, you may have to go to court to get him to pay for the whole removal process.