Gifts and Gripes ~ Home Inspections

Read this family's story to become a wise home buyer.


Going out to all young families looking to buy a home: please, please be aware of all small print and always get a second opinion. I'm telling you this because I thought I was crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's. This is my story:
My husband and I and our four children moved into an older home in 2008, we had it inspected and told all was great. We built rooms in the wooden basement and all was up to permit code...to find out that 3 years later our basement is falling in. On top of this we go through our insurance to see what they could do...'cuz you know everyone has insurance for this reason, so we thought..... then they sent out an engineer that informs us that the joists in our basement along our east and west walls are giving in which he said has been occurring over an extended period of time and that it should have been detected by a house inspector. Now we go back to our inspection report to the contract signed and dated that they (house inspector) are not held responsible or liable…which of course we signed....believing that you pay them to tell if you are getting a good house or not. We then later get a phone call stating the insurance company does not cover structural damage and that this is now a serious problem. GREAT! Now the ground is frozen....what do we do? Luckily we had a contractor come in and brace the walls 'til the ground thaws, thinking this is all good. Until I get a phone call from my insurance company, two months later, that they no longer want to insure a high risk basement and also if a concrete basement is not put in by May 15th they are cancelling our insurance. So we are now sitting at a stand still on what to do, who to trust and ourselves to pay for all the mess-ups that we thought would not happen, or if they did our insurance would help us out!!! I'm not trying to discourage you from buying a home or getting into any investments; I'm telling my story to hopefully help out other families looking into buying a home to make sure that you check EVERYTHING. If you have any questions don't be hesitant and just be careful!!!

~ Amanda M.

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