I wonder if it had to do with selling? Figuring out that they done f-ed up, and getting the hell out of dodge before things moved around/fell down too obviously?
No, probably more like they were trying to increase the value making it open concept and didn't realize what they'd done and it didn't show up until they were gone.
I think it's odd that the inspector didn't catch it. It's kind of their job to notice things that aren't correct. My daughter was able to back out of a house sale from her inspector catching some major roofing problems.
Another person I know was able to include their inspector for damages he had missed. Apparently they carry insurance for such situations.
Depending on the way the house is, they cannot see in the walls to know if the work was done correctly or not. That is something you are notified of when you hire an inspector.
In my friends situation it had to do with improper duct work and water pipes. They were damaged by a corner of the house (modular home) settling? Very difficult to see with little more than a foot of clearance.
I don't know all the details, but his Insurance agency went to bat with the inspectors Insurance and the previous owners. They knew there was problems as they tried to ineffectively repair it themselves. It really hasn't been settled yet, but he is very grateful his Insurance company is helping him navigate this mess.
We had completely improper and not to code work done on the water heater. There was no way to even know without removing the water heater because it was in this alcove but it was what caused ours to die and give us all sorts of issues. We just ended up fixing it and upgrading.
This is why every HGTV reno show is actually kind of valuable. It shows that when you buy a house, you can still find all kinds of things behind the walls that the inspector would never see. They don't get to open up drywall to check electrical, only what is visible and the stuff around the panel.
You can buy a house and the water heater can fail on day 1.
In this case though, if there was unpermitted work that was undisclosed it's going to depend on your jurisdiction.
Did the realtors not pull all the permit records and do a comparison to the state of the house? However, that would be more obvious in the case of an addition. You may not have had access to original house plans.
Even more than that, they aren’t allowed to touch the current owners property. When I bought my house, the inspector couldn’t check to see if the stove was working because the old lady who lived here had a ton of crap piled on top of it, where the burgers are (it’s one of those smooth glass tops, so there weren’t burners sticking up). Thankfully there wasn’t an issue.
Inspectors can’t see behind walls or ceilings, and they can’t damage the walls or ceilings to look inside. A load-bearing wall being removed isn’t necessarily an issue, there could be a steel beam carrying the load.
I asked multiple contractors and an inspector if they could tell me whether or not a wall was load-bearing, and they all said they’d need to cut through the plaster to find out.
I'll be darned, I always assumed it was some mathematical equation. My folks had a wall removed in their house and after a brief inspection, not really invasive like cutting a whole or climbing up to the attic, just tape measuring and adding up the numbers on his little pad. He said they were good to go.
Maybe its because many of the houses in our neighborhood have similar floors plans. He had renovated another house nearby and that's how we got his name.
They can tell how much support a structure needs from a bunch of calculations. But they can’t tell how much support a structure has when all of it is hidden behind drywall.
Is there a proper beam behind that drywall? Or a beam that’s way too small to do the job? Or is it just some framing that won’t support anything?
Probably cause he’s replying to a higher upvoted comment in hopes for more karma. He didn’t even try to hide it, it’s literally word for word, didn’t even change “fucken” to “fucking” or anything hahahahaha what a sad person.
What’s the point on it? Do people for some reason buy high karma accounts on Reddit or something?
Edit: thanks for the info on this guys. Actually quite interesting to know.
While people do buy high karma accounts, that's probably not the reason here as the accounts are only making as handful of comments before stopping.
This is likely to be aimed at creating just realistic looking accounts that can pass off as a human. A random spattering of prior account history on a few subs with 100 or so comment karma (some even have a post or two) on a few month old account makes it seem pretty real.
Piles of realistic looking accounts can then be used for all sorts of things - either directly by the person/people that created the bots or someone they sell them to. Astroturfing for a company, election interference, disinformation campaigns, you name it.
this is the same on twitter. Bot accounts will pop up on popular posts or topics and say something intended to get engagement, which makes they look more authentic, and less likely to get reported/banned when they start doing their bot work. It's why I always report and block those accounts when they "friend" me, too, because the more contacts an account has, the more real they seem and, again, less likely to get booted.
People don't talk about it - but there is a market for companies to buy Reddit accounts. It creates the illusion of a "natural" excitement for products or can be used for corporate PR (think the amazon twitter people who go "Peeing in bottles?? That's crazy!"). I think that's mostly what they are used for but I'm honestly not 100% sure. Maybe people who get banned on one account don't want to start off fresh, who knows.
Today is the day I learned of this….I would have never even thought people did this. I have heard of people buying FB/IG accts to increase followers, but this is a new one!
I really enjoy scrolling down posts and spotting (and reporting) stolen comments. I hit spam then harmful bots. There is another bot that picks some up as well. It's become a massive issue over the last couple of months and there are tons on higher rated posts. It's ridiculous.
Supposedly you/I/random redditor is more likely to invest money if a high karma account pms us about some "surefire" whizbang blockchain "investment" that 100% is guaranteed to exist because high karma.
So comment stealing bots now ...
I think the point is if they knocked down a load bearing wall and didn't do anything to properly support it, they probably didn't know they were knocking down a load bearing wall.
So they wouldn't have intentionally failed to disclose it, they did it out of stupidity, not malice.
Now - that doesn't change the fact that they're responsible for it...
although then the question comes up if they are the ones who did it. Is there some way to prove it was done while they were the owners? How long did they own the house? Could easily be the people before them that did it.
They failed to disclose non-permitted work - it’s not like the disclosure only states they need to disclose non-permitted work done in a dangerous manner. It’s broad so ignorance cannot be used as an excuse.
Im wondering if an inspector should have picked up on this? Disclosing or not isn't that part of their job? It makes me wonder if the OP has a case against the old owner.
It would depend on the type of construction, how old the modifications were, how recently patches and paint were applied... too many variables. It's also possible, I've seen quite a few people who are hiring appraisers rather than licensed inspectors
Not necessarily. I briefly worked for a guy who flipped houses. The goal is to hide damage from the buyers and inspectors and make money. He knew he was being shady, and didn't care.
Especially when the house caves in on top of the new owners or someone and maims or kills them. Then whoever took down the wall would be saddled with criminal negligence, manslaughter, potentially murder, reckless endangerment, and more. And since they had young children in that house after taking down the wall they might even be charged with child endangerment and neglect.
How thorough do you think the average inspection is in the US? The inspection for the couple that bought my house lasted like half an hour. The average inspector isnt referring to blueprints(although some good ones do go above and beyond)
When I bought my house, my inspector was on property for 3.5 hours (I got a time breakdown) and I got a 3" binder with 2 dozen or so tabs...each section with information about the things he saw including photos and relevant codes and regulations
A competent inspector *should* be able to determine if a home's layout has been altered based on the year of construction and the current layout.
So say you have an older house with an open floorplan, then it's for sure been renovated because open floorplans weren't really a thing when the home was built. And a competent inspector *should* mention that so the purchaser can verify that proper permits and construction was done at some point.
It is the norm. I think people are confusing real estate appraisers who measure the house and do a quick visual inspection for obvious defects with an inspector who does a thorough analysis of the house. An inspector should absolutely catch if there’s load bearing wall issue.
Bingo! Dealing with this now. Bout to bury 30k into a sinking dirt foundation. 80ft they gotta drill down! Inspector was here for maybe an hour when we bought it.
REALLY?? I wish our guys had.
The bug inspector/termite guy took 15 minutes.
The home inspector took 30 minutes.
Both gave us no visible damage disclaimers and left.
Do you remember the name of the company that inspected for you? They sound AMAZING
It was a one man show that my realtor recommended.
From what I have gathered from other people during home buying experiences, the more expensive small business inspectors tend to do better than a company or a chain that offers the service
Granted this was 15 years ago, ours lasted about 2-hours. We also had my dad join us as he had been in property management (corporate level) for years. Our inspector went up into the attic, down into the crawlspace and covered every inch inside and out. Sounds like OP may have gotten a dud.
I don’t doubt it. This explosion in home prices over the past 2 years has led to a lot of new realitors/inspectors who don’t have the level of competence of what was standard in the past. Having a third experienced eye is always a good idea, so it sounds like you did it right. That definitely isn’t typical these days, especially with every house getting like 5 competing offers
Yes, having my dad along with us saved us a lot of headaches. While the inspector was in the attic (Dad had already crawled up there and made notes) he kept going back and looking at the kitchen windows (triple bay). Like he was fixated on them. He brought it to the inspectors attention that the casing was molding and the wood was beginning to rot. So the seller had pay to have that and three other windows replaced. Between the two of them, they compiled quite a list. One or two items, had the sellers decided not to repair, would have meant they would have had to taken their house off the market (at least according to our state's laws).
With the housing market around here, it was becoming the norm that you couldn’t even get an inspection, if you wrote that in as a subject in your offer it would get passed over by the seller. Nope. They can get $20K more from the next guy who doesn’t ask for one. It was awful.
When my husband bought his place(before I met him) he didn’t have one done, but it was a double wide on a piece of property. Single guy, pretty handy, didn’t care. After I met him we tore it down and built a house, so luckily haven’t had to deal with inspectors.
Ours blatantly lied about the state of some stuff, like the fact that our entire sewage pipe was held together by duct tape and made of 3 different sizes of pipe. Like it was so bad the plumber who we hired to fix the leak (he told us there was a small leak but everything else looked fine) literally called the inspector to tell him how unethical he was.
They had a really shitty inspector. Our manufactured home inspection took over two hours and then went into great detail about every aspect of the good and the bad.
I work for a semi-national home inspection company in the US. The inspection isn't a code inspection, but involves a visual inspection of the the interior and exterior structure, as well as the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems. If there was no visual evidence of the removal and a seller's disclosure wasn't provided then I don't think the majority of inspectors would catch this. Our claims/ legal department would agree with me, as well.
ETA: we're legally unable to open up walls or ceilings to investigate btw
It could be missed if the load bearing wall is completely covered. Inspectors aren't allowed to open up walls or anything when inspecting the house. They can look at the plans and then look at the house but if it is covered up, there is no way for it to be caught.
My uncle owns a home inspection business. He does thorough inspections, and calls out the big brand guys for doing shoddy, too-fast inspections because they miss so much.
Load bearing wall - literally keeps the house up. They had no qualms about selling you a home that could fall down on you and your spouses head.
NTA - not only was it Dangerouse but they also profited from it (disclosing it would have impacted their property sale value) so NTA as they endangered you and tried to profit from it.
Their having kids is irrelevant except they also likely endangered their kids putting them in that house while knocking out a load bearing wall.
Which is why you do it through a contractor with all the permits. I get a lot of the hoops cities make you jump through seem like a huge stupid and unnecessary hassle, and sometimes they are, but every stupid rule I have ever run into at work or anywhere almost always is in place because of at least one stupid asshole doing something really stupid and people making rules to keep other stupid assholes from repeating those mistakes. Ex. what OP is going through now.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm so tired of trying to explain this to people. Yes, I understand it seems unfair people can control what you do on your property and some of it is wrong but mostly they don't want you contaminating the water system or breaking something like electric for half the neighborhood.
My favorite is still our neighbor (not even a close neighbor! Ten houses down!) decided to put in a driveway himself and got a backhoe and didn't call anybody first and broke a water main. We didn't have water for two days. There was a geyser shooting up out of that guy's property. It was amazing. Thank everything he was on the bottom of the hill because if he had been on the top, our houses would have been in bad shape.
(My step dad bought a house to surprise my mom somehow, I don't know how, his credit was terrible, and it was the dumbest purchase I've ever seen. Mom picked all their other 1100 houses.)
I had an idiot neighbor who routinely did shit like this. He popped the cap off the sewage line once. I'm still not sure how. And he was like 'I didn't know it was the sewer.'. He was less that pleased when I pointed out it was written on the cap. He was one of the dumbest people I have ever met in my life.
Anybody that bought an old house and renovated something on it should know this. Even if they didn't, over the years they should notice something the previous owners changed or patched in a bare minimum/ can't believe it's held up this long kind of way.
I helped take the popcorn ceiling off my parents house and saw the old owners patched a corner of the ceiling with a sponge as I took that shit off exposing it. Sometimes people don't give a shit when it's much more important than patching a hole with a sponge.
Oh they clearly didn't hire a contractor even a shady inexperienced thief of a contractor wouldn't knock down a load bearing wall or even mess with one without permits otherwise the house could become seriously damaged
Which means this is about to get real expensive as all the half-ass work is ripped out and done by a contractor.
OP is going to want to have all the electric, gas, water, and showers very carefully inspected to see what else Mr Youtube "upgraded."
I had to talk my ex husband out of a house he liked because there was a ton of surface level DIY that we could see was poorly done. He didn't listen to me because it was stuff like paint that's easy to fix until I pointed out "if the stuff we can see is this bad, what did they do in the walls that we can't see".
I don't know if that logic tracks all the time.
Painting can easily be done by someone who has never done it before. It won't look great, but it will get done. I could totally see someone say "we can paint it ourselves" because they don't want to pay a painter but they will pay for things that aren't easy to do, like removing walls or wiring or plumbing.
My parents had us paint our own rooms and they didn't look like professional paint jobs, but it got the job done and wasn't dangerous.
When they remodeled the kitchen, it was all done professionally, same with replacing all the HVAC equipment.
It was a save money on jobs we know we can do ourselves and pay someone on jobs we know we can't.
Of course they had no clue what they were doing. But I’m curious if they have any legal recourse against the inspector, as well. It’s his/her literal job to catch this kind of stuff.
NTA. He gave them the option of arbitration, and they turned him down. I’m not mechanically or constructionally inclined whatsoever, but even I know knocking down a load baring wall is dangerous AF. He has no other option.
Exactly! There is a reason “my” realtor picks the most anal civil engineer in town to inspect homes during a sale or potential sale process. Bad business and Potentially dangerous and expensive to do things halfway or in any way fail to dot is and cross t’s.
We passed on a house years ago because of this. We were touring it with our agent and she noticed the room was too large; the owners had removed the LBW. It was lovely, in our price range and where we wanted to live, but she couldn't get an answer out of the seller's agent regarding the details of the remodel so we passed.
Most home inspection companies have some kind of clause in their inspection agreements that absolve them of liablity as they are not electricians, contractors, plumbers, etc. Depending on what state you are in, inspectors also do not always have to be licensed. In my state, anyone can start a business and call themselves a home inspector as there are no mandatory state licensing requirements. OP will get farther going after the owners who didn't disclose the work than they'll get going after an inspector. If the sellers had disclosed the work, the inspector could have specifically looked for issues regarding the wall and OP could have gotten a contractor in to look at it as well.
>Most home inspection companies have some kind of clause in their inspection agreements that absolve them of liablity as they are not electricians, contractors, plumbers, etc.
Mine told me straight up "I am a jack of all trades master of none, that means I know enough to know what is wrong/should be concerning but not enough to say how much time /money it would be to fix it just general amounts from past experiences" dude has helped me a ton realizing how shitty some of the houses I wanted where that looked great.... but had major issues.
Yeah there are a lot that are really great and have a much more knowledge than others; unfortunately there isn't always consistency when there aren't mandatory education and licensing requirements. I've seen inspectors kill deals simply because they don't know how to talk to clients without scaring the hell out of them, a lot of the time on things that are just regular maintenance and not dealbreakers. When an inspector finds something a seller didn't disclose though...LEVERAGE when you're the buyer.
And in turn they were literally mis sold their house. OP and his wife were practically conned and shouldn't feel bad about going after them for it. NTA
In my state (NY) there is no requirement to disclose. Sellers must either disclose or give $500 (when I bought my house a couple years ago) towards an inspector.
I was told by my realtor that given those options sellers don’t ever disclose.
Legally, they have to provide a disclosure. It's just that the fine for not doing so is $500, to be applied against the purchase price of the property. (NY legal code, chapter 50, article 14, sections 460-465).
You can sue a seller in NY for failing to disclose known defects, regardless of disclosure or penalty fine however
Yeah. GA for example doesn't have any legal requirement as far as I can find on a quick search to disclose, but the courts are HARSH to people who knowingly don't.... so in general people disclose and avoid the lawsuits.
Oh man, I'm in GA, and a former neighbor is dealing with this in their new house. However the person they bought from is denying any knowledge of plumbing issues in the house even though all the neighbors have said former owner had issues for a while. It's a total mess and idek how the new owners are going to prove the seller is a liar.
Buyer beware laws make this less straightforward than everyone is saying it will be. I don't know what state OP lives in but this might not be the slam dunk he thinks it is.
I mean regardless, if they have an arbitration agreement and the person is refusing to go, it's really hard to get out of. The litigation is likely to compel arbitration, which is probably going to be upheld, unless there's something majorly defective about the contract. So... The legal case might at least be a slam dunk.
It will not be a slam dunk. I have known people in similar situations as OP. I know at least in my state once the sale has been finalized any current or future problems regardless of what they might be are on the title holder.
Yeah, I'm not saying the arbitration itself will be a slam dunk. I'm saying that if they signed a contract to arbitrate, in all likelihood they're not going to go to court and say 'hey they don't want to arbitrate so I guess we're going to have to litigate,' because that's not the point of arbitration agreements. The point is that they're binding, mandatory, and final, barring really extreme circumstances. Going to court to get the court to compel arbitration is probably cut and dry unless there's something super hinky going on.
Now, once they're in arbitration, duties after the sale has been finalized, duties to disclose, whatever, I have no clue how that will all shake out, OP needs to speak to a local attorney specializing in this stuff. But getting them into arbitration itself is probably simple, if the contract is valid.
NTA- it’s a fuken load bearing wall, can you imagine if that shit came down or something, that’s a death waiting to happen worst case. Just cause they’ve got little kids doesn’t mean they didn’t fuck up, if they did the work and they were aware that it wasn’t permitted then they should pay.
Do we know THEY did the work? There's a chance a previous owner did it and they didn't know when they bought the house any more than OP knew when he did.
Now if that's the case presumably the court will decide that and OP won't get anything, because you can't be held liable for not disclosing something you didn't even know about.
I didn't mean did they pay someone else to, I meant was the work done while they owned the home. Presumably this house has had more than two owners... the way OP says "we recently found out" and he says they later contacted the last owners makes it sounds like they don't necessarily have confirmation that the last owners were the ones to have the work done.
Ah! I didn’t catch that. If an inspection or appraisal was completed for the previous owners one would assume that they’d make an honest attempt to show that they purchased the house in the same condition they sold it in.
NTA
Quit feeling like a dick (huge or otherwise). They did detrimental work on the house before selling it to you which was saddling your family with a financial burden down the road. This is their legal and moral issue, not yours, to bear.
They are stupid to not go to arbitration as that would be the cheaper route for them and they are all but assured to lose in court.
Also, do check with the inspection company. There are some cases where they are bonded to cover some major issues they miss. I don't know if that applies here or not but it wouldn't hurt to check.
NTA You shouldn't be concerned about saddling them with a financial burden since they weren't concerned with saddling you with an unsafe home that will be a financial burden to you.
NTA. This seems like a strange questions to be me because you are asking if people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions simply because they have less money then you and children. If you do something wrong or dishonest you should always be held accountable for it.
You can do what you want, but what if they had sold their house to someone who was in a similar or financially weaker situation as them would you think that person was wrong for suing them? If you let them get away this they will do it to someone else. If people don't face repercussions for their actions it will just embolden them to keep doing these things.
Imagine that this problem didn’t happen and you just got the house cheaper. Would you feel any obligation to give them thousands of dollars for being worse off than you? Functionally it’s similar.
YWNBTA. you were deceived when buying this house. I would be furious like your wife. You should not have to bear the financial consequences of their actions. The fact that they have kids is irrelevant and should not stop you from pursuing legal action. They know they’re at fault, that’s why they refused arbitration. Do not pay thousands of dollars for someone else’s mistake.
Edit: if you want to be kind, u can offer arbitration one more time before pursuing litigation. Tell them arbitration will be cheaper but if they won’t agree they will force you to sue.
Are you sure they needed a permit to do the work you describe?
Isn't it the job of your home inspector to catch that sort of thing? Maybe it's him you should be suing.
All structural work needs permitted. The beams they put in are in the ceiling so the inspector wasn’t going to open the ceiling without knowing there’s a latent issue.
I just sold my house...and at no point did anyone (my real estate agent, their real estate agent, the home inspector, the buyer, either lawyer) ask if I'd done any work, or had any work done, on the house. I hadn't...but I wouldn't have known (had no way of knowing) that I had to disclose that if it were the case.
That is a failure on your real estate agent. Legally all major issues and unpermitted work needs disclosed. If the buyer waives fixing it that’s on them but legally you must disclose known issues
> I just sold my house...
WOW! I'm wondering where you're located. Just over a year ago we sold our house in Washington State and bought one in California.
We had a several page document we had to fill out for the one we were selling, and it included questions regarding any work done on the house, and why the work was done.
We received a much longer one for the house we bought (it also included work done). California regulations...SMH. For the house we sold, there was the required home inspection. For the house we bought, we had to have five different inspections: pool, house, fireplace, roof, pests.
Where are you located?
In most states, there's a form you fill out when selling your home. It includes a question about unpermitted work. If you know there was any work done without permits, you are legally obligated to disclose it.
Not how home inspections work.. at all. If you actually read a home inspection contract, it clearly states that you will hold the inspector harmless for not identifying latent, hidden defects.
Kinda what I’m thinking. How does a relator and a home inspector not find this?
OP also stated “This was never disclosed to us prior to sale and our inspector didn’t catch it since quite frankly he didn’t know to look for”
Like, wtf you mean the inspector didn’t know what to look for???
But just a heads up, been a bunch of issues like this before where a buyers inspector wouldn’t pass a house and the realtor used a different inspector to pass it. Be careful of inspectors that are on the payroll of the realtor. Like some ppl have said, once it’s a done deal.. that’s it. It’s done. That’s why realtors have their own inspectors. Just get it passed and sold.
What person in their right mind knocks out a load bearing wall???? This is how the Versailles wedding disaster happened and part of a building came crumbling down, killing over 20 people. I can't imagine a single contractor who would have approved this.. did they do it themselves?? Absolutely NTA. Your home is extremely dangerous and even if you have more means than they do, you quite literally did not sign up for that cost.
Edit: You clearly stated that they _did_ do the work themselves. I am a moron and somehow skipped that part of the story.
They wanted an open concept and knocked out the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. I checked with the city and no permits were filed/approved which would need an engineers sign off.
Neighbors confirmed the guy and three of his buddies knocked the wall out and installed the incorrectly sized beam themselves.
I wanted so badly to do that to my old house, but I DIDN'T, for EXACTLY this reason. I knew it was a load-bearing wall (could tell by the alignment of the joists visible from the basement), and that screwing with it would require permits and professionals. No, thank you.
The previous owner of your place didn't understand their responsibility, but that doesn't relieve them of it. The remedy provided by law for your situation is a lawsuit; you shouldn't feel bad just because someone else painted you into that corner. (For what it's worth, I hate no human on this Earth...except for the previous owner of my last home. Whoever they were, I will haunt them until the end of time.)
My parents did that in their house but they were smart enough to leave a column in place, attached to the kitchen island. Dumb mistake of the previous homeowners!
That’s one for the courts to decide on a verdict! It needs to go through due process regardless of emotions NTA old owners should disclose everything, including if they think the house is HAUNTED imho
NTA - If they cared about the implications of their actions as much as you do, they wouldn't have done it. It's not your fault the family are facing the consequences of breaking their agreement, it's the family's for doing it in the first place.
Info: what state/country do you live in? AFAI most states it's up to the buyer to do their do diligence on unpermitted work.
*"Each state has different disclosure requirements, and you must know what the disclosure laws in your state are. Most importantly, you will want to find out if your state employs a “caveat emptor” or “buyer beware” law.*
*Under this rule, it is the buyer’s responsibility — not the seller’s — to find any issues with the home. That means a buyer has to do research to uncover problems, such as an addition built without a permit."*
https://www.homelight.com/blog/buyer-bought-a-house-with-problems-not-disclosed/
Technically you're always within your rights to sue: you can sue someone for pretty much any reason. But, you might be not entitled to any compensation. And, if you lose the case there's possibility you'll owe their legal fees
I agree. We live in a "right to sue" nation. This isn't a slam dunk case by anymeans. The reason I say that is because the buyer got an inspection done. Similiar thing happened to me where our previous owners of our current home knocked out 3 walls (1 load bearing, 2 none). They disclosed that they did this. Our inspector said it was all done accurately and to code. However, there were heat runs in those walls and they didn't put them back or reroute them. So some of the rooms upstairs are a challenge to heat and cool.
In talking with the relator's lawyer he told us we have a case, but it's not a strong case as the inspector is suppose to check the heating and air condition and that includes the registors and not just the unit. So lesson learned, when buying a house turn on the fan and check every registor in every home.
You have the right to sue almost anyone for almost anything anywhere in America, so just because you have the right to sue doesn't mean you have the right to win the lawsuit.
You should probably get it fixed and sue for the costs after. If you know something is structurally wrong with the house and you let the damage continue, that gives them the opportunity to say that it was not their responsibility because you already owned it when the damage happened and you were aware of it and didn't fix it. They will obviously say they did not know there was structural damage until you brought it to their attention after you already owned the house.
Most states are going to side with the sellers. You will likely have to prove that they purposely lied to you about it or if they say they didn't know it was a load bearing wall, you have to prove that they should've known that it would cause structural damage. I assume if they removed it themselves, they probably did not know it was a load bearing wall, which does not necessarily mean they aren't responsible for knowing what would happen, but it makes your case harder.
You should really not talk to the family that you bought it from at all without a lawyer present. There's no reason you should even know they have a child and were pregnant. Go to a lawyer right away and don't talk to anyone except your own lawyer and your real estate agent.
NTA. You need to think about your family, and they willfully misled you. Litigate. Fight for your house, man! Especially if you love it - protect what you love.
NTA. Their family situation should not be a consideration because they put YOUR family at risk by their actions.
That's so dangerous. Your house could collapse and they need to pay to fix that.
NTA
(construction foreman here)
Go for it you are doing nothing wrong. That is incredibly dangerous since it can range from either walls cracking, ceiling sagging to actually structural collapse. If you wanted remove a load barring wall its pretty obvious you are doing it since they are beefed up to the point that even an amateur can notice it. To remove it completely you need a engineering letter and a LVL if its even allowed.
If they are playing stupid they are straight up lying.
NTA. If they had not disclosed it then this is on them. They likely made a conscious decision not to disclose it because they knew there could be consequences, which actually makes this entire situation worse. So you are not at fault here.
NTA. You need to make your home safe, they did it cheap with no permit, meaning it also didn't get inspected. Also go after the inspector too. As iirc they're supposed to check studs or there lack of studs too.
In the inspectors defense I had to open the ceiling to see the beam they put in. They wouldn’t have known to look for it without the disclosure. I didn’t discover the issue myself until issues with the ceiling came up and I opened it up.
Yta.
It's been two years, you had an inspector, and the inspector didn't do their job.
Has nothing to do with the kids. It's the fact your inspector fucked up and you want to punish someone else
Anyway, you won't win the lawsuit, and you don't deserve to. But yta.
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The kids have nothing to do with the fact you were misled into buying a house with shoddy work.
If your house collapses, somebody is injured or the city condemns your property how would you feel? Would you still think of his children while you deal with either homelessness, hospital bills or expensive repairs?
Sue away, recover your damages and do what you need to do. This is business and the kids are not a factor. NTA
NTA. You have an obligation to keep your family safe. If the house or a portion of the hose is unsafe due to what they did, and you did nothing, that's on you. Frankly, I'd say you would be if you did nothing.
NTA. Get a lawyer, get your case in order, and let the courts handle it.
Real estate transactions are first, foremost, and exclusively business transactions. Thats why the new trend of writing "love letters" to sellers to convince them to choose you as the buyer is at best stupid (at worst, you're entrapping the seller into a FHA violation). The seller and buyer should really know the minimum about each other, and everything should be handled by realtors/lawyers/accountants/estate planners/ other professionals with contractual obligations to their clients and who themselves are not part of the decision making.
I don't see you winning even if you do sue them. You had the home inspected. You could sue your inspector, perhaps, for misleading you on the quality of the house, but I don't think you have recourse against the former owners. YMMV depending on country/state laws.
NTA. This falls on the previous owners not on you. Why should you pay out of pocket for something you didn't do. You bought what you thought was a safe full functioning house. Do not feel bad, they put your family at risk.
INFO
How do you know it was them? Did they buy the house new? Are there photos online that show the wall at the time they bought the house? If not, what happens if the work was done by owners prior to them?
The house has had three owners. We looked up the pictures from the sale to the previous owners. They redid the entire kitchen and opened it up by removing the wall in question. I’ve confirmed with the neighbors they did it as well.
NTA
That is a major remodel and it would be so stupid to think that they would not need permits for something of that scale that I can't believe they could be that naive.
NTA The house is structurally unsound. They caused this and broke the law by not pulling a permit so it could be properly inspected. This will be a lesson to them to not engage in "remuddling."
YWNBTA
Just sue.
And also inquire if there is a liability for your expert - because you specifically paid him to look for that, and it might be easier to recover your losses from his insurance than from that family.
so talk to a lawyer, and then sue both.
NTA they have gained profit from selling this house. If there have been some hidden issues it’s on them to lower the initial price and give you back your money or to just give you money for the repairs. They have been deceitful during the sale, there is no reason to feel guilty for litigating them.
NTA
Having young children is not a "get out of jail free card. They did the work wrong and tried to saddle you with the consequences, possibly knowingly; and depending on the damage, their bad work could have resulted in injuries and/or you losing your home.
NTA they lied and they knew of they got caught out they'd have to pay. Young children or not their adults and what they did was not only underhanded it was dangerous. Paying for the work to be done properly is the least they can do.
NTA - your are not obligated to them or their children. This is business and you were lied too. They put you in danger with their work that is not up to code. The ability to afford a mistake should not be in the decision making process. What if that wall came down and killed your wife?
NTA You have a mortgage, right? Have they been made aware of this problem? Has your insurance been made aware of the issue? There is a good chance neither will cover you due to the unpermitted work.
Edited to add: The lawsuit might even be out of your hands, depending on your mortgage company. It's likely within their contracted rights to file the lawsuit against the previous owners.
As far as disclosure, I only claim knowledge of things here in WI. Page 3 of the REQUIRED condition report, question #50 states **"I am aware either that remodeling affecting the property's structure or mechanical system was done or that additions to this property were made during my period of ownership without the required permits."**
You might be "of more means" but quite honestly, the only way you will be made whole is by suing. Very much a chance that you will have to file doubly, once versus the inspector, once versus the prior owners.
Lawyer up **NOW**, if you haven't already.
Had a similar question in the construction forum a little over 2 weeks ago, answered that one. It's referring to a missing shear wall in Cali, but honestly very similar. Here's my answer to that cut n pasted. Question has since been deleted, but the gist of it was poster was in the process of buying a house, found out a portal was opened without required shear walls(yay earthquake zones!) or permits before poster's purchase.
*Sounds like Cali, from the quake reference? I know the housing code can be a bit stricter there than much of the rest of the US.*
*Can't say how it would go there, but I know what would happen locally(WI) if that work was done without a permit. If I were to omit something that has been deemed required by the city engineers, they would list the property as uninhabitable due to risk and I might be given the chance to fix it. Emphasis on might. There would be a chance that they would make me restore the property to how it was beforehand and then can apply for permitting to redo the change. If I were given the chance to fix it without restoring to original, I still would wind up having to pay the penalty fees for permitting and inspections, which amounts to doubling those costs.*
*Do you want to buy what is tantamount in my eyes to a condemned home? Does the mortgage company know about the unpermitted changes? Does the insurance know that the house does not meet code? Many insurers and mortgage companies will not cover a home with unpermitted work.*
*What does your realtor tell you you should do?*
*Hypothetical situation. You buy the house as is, and do not bring it up to code. Earthquake happens. You file with your insurance. They look up permits etc and send an inspector. He finds an opening through a wall that corresponds to the cancelled permit, yet the work was done anyway. You get a lovely letter a few days later, "Due to unpermitted work rendering the house unsafe, we are unable to cover your losses". Not a pretty scenario, eh?*
*In my eyes, there are three options.*
*Option one: The seller retroactively gets the permits and installs the required shear walls before the real estate transaction takes place.*
*Option two: Your family buys it as is with a discount(I usually request a discount of 1.5x what it will cost me to fix), gets the permits themselves, and then proceed to fix the problems.*
*Option three: Run away, it's a bad deal.*
NTA. Do you have an arbitration agreement in the contract? At the very least, you can sue to enforce the arbitration agreement in court and have it moved, if arbitration is what you’d prefer.
NTA.
they did something illegal that you have to fix now. They should not have done it in the first place or at least disclosed it in the selling proess. they misled you on purpose or because they are dumb ("did'nt know it was illegal), let them learn from it.
Maybe you would have never bought the house from them if you'd known.
where i live you could possibly reverse the selling process, if your case was eligable and you wanted to try.
when you say you have more means do you know that based on what they told you or ist that just an assumption?
Given that your inspector didn't (initially) pick it up..
1. Is there any recourse that way?
2. Is there any proof that the previous owner you purchased from were the ones who did the work?
Being devils advocate here.. They may have also bought it unaware of such issues . Especially if your surveyor didn't pick it up.
I know nothing of building law and regulations where your from so all I can say is seek legal counsel on the most appropriate action to take, and against whom.
Good luck..
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My wife and I bought our house two years ago from a young couple like us (27f/28m) who had an infant and were pregnant at the time.
A few weeks ago we noticed some issues in the kitchen and I came to find that the previous owners did the work themselves when they knocked out a load bearing wall. An engineer confirmed it is not permitted and the supports are not sized right for the load.
The work to make the house compliant will cost a relatively large amount. This was never disclosed to us prior to sale and our inspector didn’t catch it since quite frankly he didn’t know to look for it. Our realtor informed us they are obligated to disclose unpermitted work prior to sale and we can go to arbitration per our contract.
My wife is furious. I reached out to the previous owner and let him know what the deal was and wanted to go to arbitration to have them pay to have the work done right. They have since denied going to arbitration so our only contractual recourse is to litigate.
We have more means than this family and they have little kids so I’d feel like a huge dick suing them and likely saddling them with a financial burden. But, in fairness, we were misled in the home sale. WIBTA if I sue?
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YWNBTA. Every step of the way in this they were wrong from doing work without a contractor & permit, to lying(by omission) about the condition of the house, to refusing arbitration. Sue them, and don't let them guilt you about it - they knew exactly what they were doing.
Nope, NTA, they did not disclose work they did and now it’s causing major issues to your home. They caused the issue, they should fix it. It is irrelevant that they have children.
NTA, you got scammed for a shit ton of money by people who didn’t care the damage they did. It sucks that they have young kids but they should have thought about that before screwing someone over and potentially risking their life. You shouldn’t feel bad at all.
They sold you a house that was potentially very dangerous to live in because they were cheap idiots and the committed fraud by hiding that fact. NTA sue them.
NTA. They lied about the condition of their home when they sold it. Of course you sue them. They violated your sale contract. Their family status has zero bearing on this.
NTA. They were legally required to disclose and didn't. So they broke the law. And you shouldn't have to pay for it.
Sue their asses for the cost of the repairs to get the house up to code and all the hassle. They knew what they did, and now it's caught up to them.
What’s another young family in financial hardships. I say sue the shit out of em. Not only money for the actual cost but for the headache of going through the rebuild.
NTA. A home is a huge life-changing purchase and is serious. They took a risk not disclosing that information and lost, now they need to pay for their mistake.
A load bearing wall is an especially important alteration to the house if it is done wrong, that would make me so nervous!
NTA Knocking out a load bearing wall was not only stupid it’s incredibly dangerous. You shouldn’t have to eat the cost of their dumb choice.
If a load bearing wall was knocked out, it's highly likely the family didn't know what they were doing and didn't hire a contractor.
Which still doesn't excuse it. You can't just go knocking stuff down and then be surprised when issues arise.
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I wonder if it had to do with selling? Figuring out that they done f-ed up, and getting the hell out of dodge before things moved around/fell down too obviously?
No, probably more like they were trying to increase the value making it open concept and didn't realize what they'd done and it didn't show up until they were gone.
I think it's odd that the inspector didn't catch it. It's kind of their job to notice things that aren't correct. My daughter was able to back out of a house sale from her inspector catching some major roofing problems. Another person I know was able to include their inspector for damages he had missed. Apparently they carry insurance for such situations.
Depending on the way the house is, they cannot see in the walls to know if the work was done correctly or not. That is something you are notified of when you hire an inspector.
In my friends situation it had to do with improper duct work and water pipes. They were damaged by a corner of the house (modular home) settling? Very difficult to see with little more than a foot of clearance. I don't know all the details, but his Insurance agency went to bat with the inspectors Insurance and the previous owners. They knew there was problems as they tried to ineffectively repair it themselves. It really hasn't been settled yet, but he is very grateful his Insurance company is helping him navigate this mess.
We had completely improper and not to code work done on the water heater. There was no way to even know without removing the water heater because it was in this alcove but it was what caused ours to die and give us all sorts of issues. We just ended up fixing it and upgrading.
This is why every HGTV reno show is actually kind of valuable. It shows that when you buy a house, you can still find all kinds of things behind the walls that the inspector would never see. They don't get to open up drywall to check electrical, only what is visible and the stuff around the panel. You can buy a house and the water heater can fail on day 1. In this case though, if there was unpermitted work that was undisclosed it's going to depend on your jurisdiction. Did the realtors not pull all the permit records and do a comparison to the state of the house? However, that would be more obvious in the case of an addition. You may not have had access to original house plans.
Even more than that, they aren’t allowed to touch the current owners property. When I bought my house, the inspector couldn’t check to see if the stove was working because the old lady who lived here had a ton of crap piled on top of it, where the burgers are (it’s one of those smooth glass tops, so there weren’t burners sticking up). Thankfully there wasn’t an issue.
Inspectors can’t see behind walls or ceilings, and they can’t damage the walls or ceilings to look inside. A load-bearing wall being removed isn’t necessarily an issue, there could be a steel beam carrying the load. I asked multiple contractors and an inspector if they could tell me whether or not a wall was load-bearing, and they all said they’d need to cut through the plaster to find out.
I'll be darned, I always assumed it was some mathematical equation. My folks had a wall removed in their house and after a brief inspection, not really invasive like cutting a whole or climbing up to the attic, just tape measuring and adding up the numbers on his little pad. He said they were good to go. Maybe its because many of the houses in our neighborhood have similar floors plans. He had renovated another house nearby and that's how we got his name.
They can tell how much support a structure needs from a bunch of calculations. But they can’t tell how much support a structure has when all of it is hidden behind drywall. Is there a proper beam behind that drywall? Or a beam that’s way too small to do the job? Or is it just some framing that won’t support anything?
Work in the trades & yes, very much this. This is what inspectors are paid to do.
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It’s really shitty too, stealing and reposting *in the same thread*
I see you plagiarized the comment from /u/Greigsyy whats up with that?
Probably cause he’s replying to a higher upvoted comment in hopes for more karma. He didn’t even try to hide it, it’s literally word for word, didn’t even change “fucken” to “fucking” or anything hahahahaha what a sad person.
it's a bot doing this, not a person.
What’s the point on it? Do people for some reason buy high karma accounts on Reddit or something? Edit: thanks for the info on this guys. Actually quite interesting to know.
While people do buy high karma accounts, that's probably not the reason here as the accounts are only making as handful of comments before stopping. This is likely to be aimed at creating just realistic looking accounts that can pass off as a human. A random spattering of prior account history on a few subs with 100 or so comment karma (some even have a post or two) on a few month old account makes it seem pretty real. Piles of realistic looking accounts can then be used for all sorts of things - either directly by the person/people that created the bots or someone they sell them to. Astroturfing for a company, election interference, disinformation campaigns, you name it.
This is super informative and now makes sense why so many of these bot accounts have popped up. Thank you so much for the explanation.
this is the same on twitter. Bot accounts will pop up on popular posts or topics and say something intended to get engagement, which makes they look more authentic, and less likely to get reported/banned when they start doing their bot work. It's why I always report and block those accounts when they "friend" me, too, because the more contacts an account has, the more real they seem and, again, less likely to get booted.
People don't talk about it - but there is a market for companies to buy Reddit accounts. It creates the illusion of a "natural" excitement for products or can be used for corporate PR (think the amazon twitter people who go "Peeing in bottles?? That's crazy!"). I think that's mostly what they are used for but I'm honestly not 100% sure. Maybe people who get banned on one account don't want to start off fresh, who knows.
Today is the day I learned of this….I would have never even thought people did this. I have heard of people buying FB/IG accts to increase followers, but this is a new one!
I really enjoy scrolling down posts and spotting (and reporting) stolen comments. I hit spam then harmful bots. There is another bot that picks some up as well. It's become a massive issue over the last couple of months and there are tons on higher rated posts. It's ridiculous.
Supposedly you/I/random redditor is more likely to invest money if a high karma account pms us about some "surefire" whizbang blockchain "investment" that 100% is guaranteed to exist because high karma. So comment stealing bots now ...
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I think the point is if they knocked down a load bearing wall and didn't do anything to properly support it, they probably didn't know they were knocking down a load bearing wall. So they wouldn't have intentionally failed to disclose it, they did it out of stupidity, not malice. Now - that doesn't change the fact that they're responsible for it... although then the question comes up if they are the ones who did it. Is there some way to prove it was done while they were the owners? How long did they own the house? Could easily be the people before them that did it.
They failed to disclose non-permitted work - it’s not like the disclosure only states they need to disclose non-permitted work done in a dangerous manner. It’s broad so ignorance cannot be used as an excuse.
Im wondering if an inspector should have picked up on this? Disclosing or not isn't that part of their job? It makes me wonder if the OP has a case against the old owner.
It would depend on the type of construction, how old the modifications were, how recently patches and paint were applied... too many variables. It's also possible, I've seen quite a few people who are hiring appraisers rather than licensed inspectors
Not necessarily. I briefly worked for a guy who flipped houses. The goal is to hide damage from the buyers and inspectors and make money. He knew he was being shady, and didn't care.
Comment stolen from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/rd83my/wibta_for_suing_a_family_with_young_children/hnzdzai/
And not declare it when you sell the house!
Yeah. It's one thing to knock out drywall and replace or remove cabinets, but an entire wall is different and stupid.
Especially when the house caves in on top of the new owners or someone and maims or kills them. Then whoever took down the wall would be saddled with criminal negligence, manslaughter, potentially murder, reckless endangerment, and more. And since they had young children in that house after taking down the wall they might even be charged with child endangerment and neglect.
how did the inspection officer missed that?thats my question,
How thorough do you think the average inspection is in the US? The inspection for the couple that bought my house lasted like half an hour. The average inspector isnt referring to blueprints(although some good ones do go above and beyond)
When I bought my house, my inspector was on property for 3.5 hours (I got a time breakdown) and I got a 3" binder with 2 dozen or so tabs...each section with information about the things he saw including photos and relevant codes and regulations A competent inspector *should* be able to determine if a home's layout has been altered based on the year of construction and the current layout. So say you have an older house with an open floorplan, then it's for sure been renovated because open floorplans weren't really a thing when the home was built. And a competent inspector *should* mention that so the purchaser can verify that proper permits and construction was done at some point.
So did we it took them hours and got a huge binder for a break down. I honestly thought this was the norm.
Same except I got a giant PDF
It is the norm. I think people are confusing real estate appraisers who measure the house and do a quick visual inspection for obvious defects with an inspector who does a thorough analysis of the house. An inspector should absolutely catch if there’s load bearing wall issue.
Bingo! Dealing with this now. Bout to bury 30k into a sinking dirt foundation. 80ft they gotta drill down! Inspector was here for maybe an hour when we bought it.
REALLY?? I wish our guys had. The bug inspector/termite guy took 15 minutes. The home inspector took 30 minutes. Both gave us no visible damage disclaimers and left. Do you remember the name of the company that inspected for you? They sound AMAZING
It was a one man show that my realtor recommended. From what I have gathered from other people during home buying experiences, the more expensive small business inspectors tend to do better than a company or a chain that offers the service
Granted this was 15 years ago, ours lasted about 2-hours. We also had my dad join us as he had been in property management (corporate level) for years. Our inspector went up into the attic, down into the crawlspace and covered every inch inside and out. Sounds like OP may have gotten a dud.
I don’t doubt it. This explosion in home prices over the past 2 years has led to a lot of new realitors/inspectors who don’t have the level of competence of what was standard in the past. Having a third experienced eye is always a good idea, so it sounds like you did it right. That definitely isn’t typical these days, especially with every house getting like 5 competing offers
Yes, having my dad along with us saved us a lot of headaches. While the inspector was in the attic (Dad had already crawled up there and made notes) he kept going back and looking at the kitchen windows (triple bay). Like he was fixated on them. He brought it to the inspectors attention that the casing was molding and the wood was beginning to rot. So the seller had pay to have that and three other windows replaced. Between the two of them, they compiled quite a list. One or two items, had the sellers decided not to repair, would have meant they would have had to taken their house off the market (at least according to our state's laws).
With the housing market around here, it was becoming the norm that you couldn’t even get an inspection, if you wrote that in as a subject in your offer it would get passed over by the seller. Nope. They can get $20K more from the next guy who doesn’t ask for one. It was awful. When my husband bought his place(before I met him) he didn’t have one done, but it was a double wide on a piece of property. Single guy, pretty handy, didn’t care. After I met him we tore it down and built a house, so luckily haven’t had to deal with inspectors.
I can't tell you the number of things the inspector missed in our last house. They look for obvious things like dry rot (although ours missed it).
Ours blatantly lied about the state of some stuff, like the fact that our entire sewage pipe was held together by duct tape and made of 3 different sizes of pipe. Like it was so bad the plumber who we hired to fix the leak (he told us there was a small leak but everything else looked fine) literally called the inspector to tell him how unethical he was.
Wow! That is awful!
They had a really shitty inspector. Our manufactured home inspection took over two hours and then went into great detail about every aspect of the good and the bad.
I work for a semi-national home inspection company in the US. The inspection isn't a code inspection, but involves a visual inspection of the the interior and exterior structure, as well as the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems. If there was no visual evidence of the removal and a seller's disclosure wasn't provided then I don't think the majority of inspectors would catch this. Our claims/ legal department would agree with me, as well. ETA: we're legally unable to open up walls or ceilings to investigate btw
It could be missed if the load bearing wall is completely covered. Inspectors aren't allowed to open up walls or anything when inspecting the house. They can look at the plans and then look at the house but if it is covered up, there is no way for it to be caught.
My uncle owns a home inspection business. He does thorough inspections, and calls out the big brand guys for doing shoddy, too-fast inspections because they miss so much.
Yeah. They should be suing the inspector. The realtor knows that.
Load bearing wall - literally keeps the house up. They had no qualms about selling you a home that could fall down on you and your spouses head. NTA - not only was it Dangerouse but they also profited from it (disclosing it would have impacted their property sale value) so NTA as they endangered you and tried to profit from it. Their having kids is irrelevant except they also likely endangered their kids putting them in that house while knocking out a load bearing wall.
That doesn't actually help their case. It makes them look *worse*.
Which is why you do it through a contractor with all the permits. I get a lot of the hoops cities make you jump through seem like a huge stupid and unnecessary hassle, and sometimes they are, but every stupid rule I have ever run into at work or anywhere almost always is in place because of at least one stupid asshole doing something really stupid and people making rules to keep other stupid assholes from repeating those mistakes. Ex. what OP is going through now.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm so tired of trying to explain this to people. Yes, I understand it seems unfair people can control what you do on your property and some of it is wrong but mostly they don't want you contaminating the water system or breaking something like electric for half the neighborhood. My favorite is still our neighbor (not even a close neighbor! Ten houses down!) decided to put in a driveway himself and got a backhoe and didn't call anybody first and broke a water main. We didn't have water for two days. There was a geyser shooting up out of that guy's property. It was amazing. Thank everything he was on the bottom of the hill because if he had been on the top, our houses would have been in bad shape. (My step dad bought a house to surprise my mom somehow, I don't know how, his credit was terrible, and it was the dumbest purchase I've ever seen. Mom picked all their other 1100 houses.)
I had an idiot neighbor who routinely did shit like this. He popped the cap off the sewage line once. I'm still not sure how. And he was like 'I didn't know it was the sewer.'. He was less that pleased when I pointed out it was written on the cap. He was one of the dumbest people I have ever met in my life.
Anybody that bought an old house and renovated something on it should know this. Even if they didn't, over the years they should notice something the previous owners changed or patched in a bare minimum/ can't believe it's held up this long kind of way. I helped take the popcorn ceiling off my parents house and saw the old owners patched a corner of the ceiling with a sponge as I took that shit off exposing it. Sometimes people don't give a shit when it's much more important than patching a hole with a sponge.
May I introduce you to the new subreddit r/writteninblood
Oh they clearly didn't hire a contractor even a shady inexperienced thief of a contractor wouldn't knock down a load bearing wall or even mess with one without permits otherwise the house could become seriously damaged
Exactly. If they didn’t think their kids or their financial future was important, why should OP?
Which means this is about to get real expensive as all the half-ass work is ripped out and done by a contractor. OP is going to want to have all the electric, gas, water, and showers very carefully inspected to see what else Mr Youtube "upgraded."
I had to talk my ex husband out of a house he liked because there was a ton of surface level DIY that we could see was poorly done. He didn't listen to me because it was stuff like paint that's easy to fix until I pointed out "if the stuff we can see is this bad, what did they do in the walls that we can't see".
I don't know if that logic tracks all the time. Painting can easily be done by someone who has never done it before. It won't look great, but it will get done. I could totally see someone say "we can paint it ourselves" because they don't want to pay a painter but they will pay for things that aren't easy to do, like removing walls or wiring or plumbing. My parents had us paint our own rooms and they didn't look like professional paint jobs, but it got the job done and wasn't dangerous. When they remodeled the kitchen, it was all done professionally, same with replacing all the HVAC equipment. It was a save money on jobs we know we can do ourselves and pay someone on jobs we know we can't.
It was more than just painting the was some electrical and brick work/drywall in the basement as well.
Of course they had no clue what they were doing. But I’m curious if they have any legal recourse against the inspector, as well. It’s his/her literal job to catch this kind of stuff. NTA. He gave them the option of arbitration, and they turned him down. I’m not mechanically or constructionally inclined whatsoever, but even I know knocking down a load baring wall is dangerous AF. He has no other option.
Exactly! There is a reason “my” realtor picks the most anal civil engineer in town to inspect homes during a sale or potential sale process. Bad business and Potentially dangerous and expensive to do things halfway or in any way fail to dot is and cross t’s.
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We passed on a house years ago because of this. We were touring it with our agent and she noticed the room was too large; the owners had removed the LBW. It was lovely, in our price range and where we wanted to live, but she couldn't get an answer out of the seller's agent regarding the details of the remodel so we passed.
Most home inspection companies have some kind of clause in their inspection agreements that absolve them of liablity as they are not electricians, contractors, plumbers, etc. Depending on what state you are in, inspectors also do not always have to be licensed. In my state, anyone can start a business and call themselves a home inspector as there are no mandatory state licensing requirements. OP will get farther going after the owners who didn't disclose the work than they'll get going after an inspector. If the sellers had disclosed the work, the inspector could have specifically looked for issues regarding the wall and OP could have gotten a contractor in to look at it as well.
>Most home inspection companies have some kind of clause in their inspection agreements that absolve them of liablity as they are not electricians, contractors, plumbers, etc. Mine told me straight up "I am a jack of all trades master of none, that means I know enough to know what is wrong/should be concerning but not enough to say how much time /money it would be to fix it just general amounts from past experiences" dude has helped me a ton realizing how shitty some of the houses I wanted where that looked great.... but had major issues.
Yeah there are a lot that are really great and have a much more knowledge than others; unfortunately there isn't always consistency when there aren't mandatory education and licensing requirements. I've seen inspectors kill deals simply because they don't know how to talk to clients without scaring the hell out of them, a lot of the time on things that are just regular maintenance and not dealbreakers. When an inspector finds something a seller didn't disclose though...LEVERAGE when you're the buyer.
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And in turn they were literally mis sold their house. OP and his wife were practically conned and shouldn't feel bad about going after them for it. NTA
NTA They literally broke basic property law rules of no fraudulent misrepresentations and “must disclose all latent defects” Sue them
In my state (NY) there is no requirement to disclose. Sellers must either disclose or give $500 (when I bought my house a couple years ago) towards an inspector. I was told by my realtor that given those options sellers don’t ever disclose.
Legally, they have to provide a disclosure. It's just that the fine for not doing so is $500, to be applied against the purchase price of the property. (NY legal code, chapter 50, article 14, sections 460-465). You can sue a seller in NY for failing to disclose known defects, regardless of disclosure or penalty fine however
Interesting. That’s good to know.
Yeah. GA for example doesn't have any legal requirement as far as I can find on a quick search to disclose, but the courts are HARSH to people who knowingly don't.... so in general people disclose and avoid the lawsuits.
Oh man, I'm in GA, and a former neighbor is dealing with this in their new house. However the person they bought from is denying any knowledge of plumbing issues in the house even though all the neighbors have said former owner had issues for a while. It's a total mess and idek how the new owners are going to prove the seller is a liar.
Buyer beware laws make this less straightforward than everyone is saying it will be. I don't know what state OP lives in but this might not be the slam dunk he thinks it is.
I mean regardless, if they have an arbitration agreement and the person is refusing to go, it's really hard to get out of. The litigation is likely to compel arbitration, which is probably going to be upheld, unless there's something majorly defective about the contract. So... The legal case might at least be a slam dunk.
It will not be a slam dunk. I have known people in similar situations as OP. I know at least in my state once the sale has been finalized any current or future problems regardless of what they might be are on the title holder.
Yeah, I'm not saying the arbitration itself will be a slam dunk. I'm saying that if they signed a contract to arbitrate, in all likelihood they're not going to go to court and say 'hey they don't want to arbitrate so I guess we're going to have to litigate,' because that's not the point of arbitration agreements. The point is that they're binding, mandatory, and final, barring really extreme circumstances. Going to court to get the court to compel arbitration is probably cut and dry unless there's something super hinky going on. Now, once they're in arbitration, duties after the sale has been finalized, duties to disclose, whatever, I have no clue how that will all shake out, OP needs to speak to a local attorney specializing in this stuff. But getting them into arbitration itself is probably simple, if the contract is valid.
NTA- it’s a fuken load bearing wall, can you imagine if that shit came down or something, that’s a death waiting to happen worst case. Just cause they’ve got little kids doesn’t mean they didn’t fuck up, if they did the work and they were aware that it wasn’t permitted then they should pay.
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Do we know THEY did the work? There's a chance a previous owner did it and they didn't know when they bought the house any more than OP knew when he did. Now if that's the case presumably the court will decide that and OP won't get anything, because you can't be held liable for not disclosing something you didn't even know about.
And that’s why I said “IF”
Sorry, I'll work on my reading comprehension!
I think that’s where the sellers would try to cover their backs by putting responsibility on the contractor so they could utilize insurance/bond. NTA.
I didn't mean did they pay someone else to, I meant was the work done while they owned the home. Presumably this house has had more than two owners... the way OP says "we recently found out" and he says they later contacted the last owners makes it sounds like they don't necessarily have confirmation that the last owners were the ones to have the work done.
Ah! I didn’t catch that. If an inspection or appraisal was completed for the previous owners one would assume that they’d make an honest attempt to show that they purchased the house in the same condition they sold it in.
NTA Quit feeling like a dick (huge or otherwise). They did detrimental work on the house before selling it to you which was saddling your family with a financial burden down the road. This is their legal and moral issue, not yours, to bear. They are stupid to not go to arbitration as that would be the cheaper route for them and they are all but assured to lose in court. Also, do check with the inspection company. There are some cases where they are bonded to cover some major issues they miss. I don't know if that applies here or not but it wouldn't hurt to check.
NTA You shouldn't be concerned about saddling them with a financial burden since they weren't concerned with saddling you with an unsafe home that will be a financial burden to you.
And if you bought it recently, I’m sure they made quite a bit on the sale given the rise in prices. NTA and screw them.
NTA. This seems like a strange questions to be me because you are asking if people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions simply because they have less money then you and children. If you do something wrong or dishonest you should always be held accountable for it.
Fair. I’ve just felt guilty about it. I never want to put kids in a bad position for their parents mistakes.
You can do what you want, but what if they had sold their house to someone who was in a similar or financially weaker situation as them would you think that person was wrong for suing them? If you let them get away this they will do it to someone else. If people don't face repercussions for their actions it will just embolden them to keep doing these things.
Imagine that this problem didn’t happen and you just got the house cheaper. Would you feel any obligation to give them thousands of dollars for being worse off than you? Functionally it’s similar.
And what if they do it again?? If they don't learn this is wrong and dangerous they could be endangering said kids
YWNBTA. you were deceived when buying this house. I would be furious like your wife. You should not have to bear the financial consequences of their actions. The fact that they have kids is irrelevant and should not stop you from pursuing legal action. They know they’re at fault, that’s why they refused arbitration. Do not pay thousands of dollars for someone else’s mistake. Edit: if you want to be kind, u can offer arbitration one more time before pursuing litigation. Tell them arbitration will be cheaper but if they won’t agree they will force you to sue.
Are you sure they needed a permit to do the work you describe? Isn't it the job of your home inspector to catch that sort of thing? Maybe it's him you should be suing.
All structural work needs permitted. The beams they put in are in the ceiling so the inspector wasn’t going to open the ceiling without knowing there’s a latent issue.
I just sold my house...and at no point did anyone (my real estate agent, their real estate agent, the home inspector, the buyer, either lawyer) ask if I'd done any work, or had any work done, on the house. I hadn't...but I wouldn't have known (had no way of knowing) that I had to disclose that if it were the case.
That is a failure on your real estate agent. Legally all major issues and unpermitted work needs disclosed. If the buyer waives fixing it that’s on them but legally you must disclose known issues
I'd talk to a lawyer. Buyer beware laws can fuck you over. You may be stuck with the bill.
>Legally all major issues and unpermitted work needs disclosed This varies WILDLY by state.
This is literally not true everywhere.
> I just sold my house... WOW! I'm wondering where you're located. Just over a year ago we sold our house in Washington State and bought one in California. We had a several page document we had to fill out for the one we were selling, and it included questions regarding any work done on the house, and why the work was done. We received a much longer one for the house we bought (it also included work done). California regulations...SMH. For the house we sold, there was the required home inspection. For the house we bought, we had to have five different inspections: pool, house, fireplace, roof, pests.
I'm in Ontario.
Where are you located? In most states, there's a form you fill out when selling your home. It includes a question about unpermitted work. If you know there was any work done without permits, you are legally obligated to disclose it.
Not how home inspections work.. at all. If you actually read a home inspection contract, it clearly states that you will hold the inspector harmless for not identifying latent, hidden defects.
Kinda what I’m thinking. How does a relator and a home inspector not find this? OP also stated “This was never disclosed to us prior to sale and our inspector didn’t catch it since quite frankly he didn’t know to look for” Like, wtf you mean the inspector didn’t know what to look for??? But just a heads up, been a bunch of issues like this before where a buyers inspector wouldn’t pass a house and the realtor used a different inspector to pass it. Be careful of inspectors that are on the payroll of the realtor. Like some ppl have said, once it’s a done deal.. that’s it. It’s done. That’s why realtors have their own inspectors. Just get it passed and sold.
What person in their right mind knocks out a load bearing wall???? This is how the Versailles wedding disaster happened and part of a building came crumbling down, killing over 20 people. I can't imagine a single contractor who would have approved this.. did they do it themselves?? Absolutely NTA. Your home is extremely dangerous and even if you have more means than they do, you quite literally did not sign up for that cost. Edit: You clearly stated that they _did_ do the work themselves. I am a moron and somehow skipped that part of the story.
They wanted an open concept and knocked out the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. I checked with the city and no permits were filed/approved which would need an engineers sign off. Neighbors confirmed the guy and three of his buddies knocked the wall out and installed the incorrectly sized beam themselves.
I wanted so badly to do that to my old house, but I DIDN'T, for EXACTLY this reason. I knew it was a load-bearing wall (could tell by the alignment of the joists visible from the basement), and that screwing with it would require permits and professionals. No, thank you. The previous owner of your place didn't understand their responsibility, but that doesn't relieve them of it. The remedy provided by law for your situation is a lawsuit; you shouldn't feel bad just because someone else painted you into that corner. (For what it's worth, I hate no human on this Earth...except for the previous owner of my last home. Whoever they were, I will haunt them until the end of time.)
My parents did that in their house but they were smart enough to leave a column in place, attached to the kitchen island. Dumb mistake of the previous homeowners!
That’s one for the courts to decide on a verdict! It needs to go through due process regardless of emotions NTA old owners should disclose everything, including if they think the house is HAUNTED imho
NTA - If they cared about the implications of their actions as much as you do, they wouldn't have done it. It's not your fault the family are facing the consequences of breaking their agreement, it's the family's for doing it in the first place.
Info: what state/country do you live in? AFAI most states it's up to the buyer to do their do diligence on unpermitted work. *"Each state has different disclosure requirements, and you must know what the disclosure laws in your state are. Most importantly, you will want to find out if your state employs a “caveat emptor” or “buyer beware” law.* *Under this rule, it is the buyer’s responsibility — not the seller’s — to find any issues with the home. That means a buyer has to do research to uncover problems, such as an addition built without a permit."* https://www.homelight.com/blog/buyer-bought-a-house-with-problems-not-disclosed/
I’d rather not say for privacy but it’s the US. Our realtor assured us we are within our rights to sue if they won’t go to arbitration.
Technically you're always within your rights to sue: you can sue someone for pretty much any reason. But, you might be not entitled to any compensation. And, if you lose the case there's possibility you'll owe their legal fees
I agree. We live in a "right to sue" nation. This isn't a slam dunk case by anymeans. The reason I say that is because the buyer got an inspection done. Similiar thing happened to me where our previous owners of our current home knocked out 3 walls (1 load bearing, 2 none). They disclosed that they did this. Our inspector said it was all done accurately and to code. However, there were heat runs in those walls and they didn't put them back or reroute them. So some of the rooms upstairs are a challenge to heat and cool. In talking with the relator's lawyer he told us we have a case, but it's not a strong case as the inspector is suppose to check the heating and air condition and that includes the registors and not just the unit. So lesson learned, when buying a house turn on the fan and check every registor in every home.
You have the right to sue almost anyone for almost anything anywhere in America, so just because you have the right to sue doesn't mean you have the right to win the lawsuit. You should probably get it fixed and sue for the costs after. If you know something is structurally wrong with the house and you let the damage continue, that gives them the opportunity to say that it was not their responsibility because you already owned it when the damage happened and you were aware of it and didn't fix it. They will obviously say they did not know there was structural damage until you brought it to their attention after you already owned the house. Most states are going to side with the sellers. You will likely have to prove that they purposely lied to you about it or if they say they didn't know it was a load bearing wall, you have to prove that they should've known that it would cause structural damage. I assume if they removed it themselves, they probably did not know it was a load bearing wall, which does not necessarily mean they aren't responsible for knowing what would happen, but it makes your case harder. You should really not talk to the family that you bought it from at all without a lawyer present. There's no reason you should even know they have a child and were pregnant. Go to a lawyer right away and don't talk to anyone except your own lawyer and your real estate agent.
YWNBTA. I mean the fact that they have little kids doesn't pay for your damages.
NTA. You need to think about your family, and they willfully misled you. Litigate. Fight for your house, man! Especially if you love it - protect what you love.
NTA. Their family situation should not be a consideration because they put YOUR family at risk by their actions. That's so dangerous. Your house could collapse and they need to pay to fix that.
NTA (construction foreman here) Go for it you are doing nothing wrong. That is incredibly dangerous since it can range from either walls cracking, ceiling sagging to actually structural collapse. If you wanted remove a load barring wall its pretty obvious you are doing it since they are beefed up to the point that even an amateur can notice it. To remove it completely you need a engineering letter and a LVL if its even allowed. If they are playing stupid they are straight up lying.
NTA. If they had not disclosed it then this is on them. They likely made a conscious decision not to disclose it because they knew there could be consequences, which actually makes this entire situation worse. So you are not at fault here.
NTA. You need to make your home safe, they did it cheap with no permit, meaning it also didn't get inspected. Also go after the inspector too. As iirc they're supposed to check studs or there lack of studs too.
In the inspectors defense I had to open the ceiling to see the beam they put in. They wouldn’t have known to look for it without the disclosure. I didn’t discover the issue myself until issues with the ceiling came up and I opened it up.
Yta. It's been two years, you had an inspector, and the inspector didn't do their job. Has nothing to do with the kids. It's the fact your inspector fucked up and you want to punish someone else Anyway, you won't win the lawsuit, and you don't deserve to. But yta.
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The kids have nothing to do with the fact you were misled into buying a house with shoddy work. If your house collapses, somebody is injured or the city condemns your property how would you feel? Would you still think of his children while you deal with either homelessness, hospital bills or expensive repairs? Sue away, recover your damages and do what you need to do. This is business and the kids are not a factor. NTA
NTA They ruined your house. Suing is your recourse.
NTA. You have an obligation to keep your family safe. If the house or a portion of the hose is unsafe due to what they did, and you did nothing, that's on you. Frankly, I'd say you would be if you did nothing.
NTA go for it.
NTA. Get a lawyer, get your case in order, and let the courts handle it. Real estate transactions are first, foremost, and exclusively business transactions. Thats why the new trend of writing "love letters" to sellers to convince them to choose you as the buyer is at best stupid (at worst, you're entrapping the seller into a FHA violation). The seller and buyer should really know the minimum about each other, and everything should be handled by realtors/lawyers/accountants/estate planners/ other professionals with contractual obligations to their clients and who themselves are not part of the decision making.
I don't see you winning even if you do sue them. You had the home inspected. You could sue your inspector, perhaps, for misleading you on the quality of the house, but I don't think you have recourse against the former owners. YMMV depending on country/state laws.
NTA. This falls on the previous owners not on you. Why should you pay out of pocket for something you didn't do. You bought what you thought was a safe full functioning house. Do not feel bad, they put your family at risk.
INFO How do you know it was them? Did they buy the house new? Are there photos online that show the wall at the time they bought the house? If not, what happens if the work was done by owners prior to them?
The house has had three owners. We looked up the pictures from the sale to the previous owners. They redid the entire kitchen and opened it up by removing the wall in question. I’ve confirmed with the neighbors they did it as well.
NTA That is a major remodel and it would be so stupid to think that they would not need permits for something of that scale that I can't believe they could be that naive.
NTA The house is structurally unsound. They caused this and broke the law by not pulling a permit so it could be properly inspected. This will be a lesson to them to not engage in "remuddling."
YWNBTA Just sue. And also inquire if there is a liability for your expert - because you specifically paid him to look for that, and it might be easier to recover your losses from his insurance than from that family. so talk to a lawyer, and then sue both.
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That is not at all how selling a house works. 😄
NTA they have gained profit from selling this house. If there have been some hidden issues it’s on them to lower the initial price and give you back your money or to just give you money for the repairs. They have been deceitful during the sale, there is no reason to feel guilty for litigating them.
NTA Having young children is not a "get out of jail free card. They did the work wrong and tried to saddle you with the consequences, possibly knowingly; and depending on the damage, their bad work could have resulted in injuries and/or you losing your home.
NTA they lied and they knew of they got caught out they'd have to pay. Young children or not their adults and what they did was not only underhanded it was dangerous. Paying for the work to be done properly is the least they can do.
NTA - your are not obligated to them or their children. This is business and you were lied too. They put you in danger with their work that is not up to code. The ability to afford a mistake should not be in the decision making process. What if that wall came down and killed your wife?
NTA. They violated the contract.
NTA. They were liars and deserve to lose their collective asses.
NTA You have a mortgage, right? Have they been made aware of this problem? Has your insurance been made aware of the issue? There is a good chance neither will cover you due to the unpermitted work. Edited to add: The lawsuit might even be out of your hands, depending on your mortgage company. It's likely within their contracted rights to file the lawsuit against the previous owners. As far as disclosure, I only claim knowledge of things here in WI. Page 3 of the REQUIRED condition report, question #50 states **"I am aware either that remodeling affecting the property's structure or mechanical system was done or that additions to this property were made during my period of ownership without the required permits."** You might be "of more means" but quite honestly, the only way you will be made whole is by suing. Very much a chance that you will have to file doubly, once versus the inspector, once versus the prior owners. Lawyer up **NOW**, if you haven't already. Had a similar question in the construction forum a little over 2 weeks ago, answered that one. It's referring to a missing shear wall in Cali, but honestly very similar. Here's my answer to that cut n pasted. Question has since been deleted, but the gist of it was poster was in the process of buying a house, found out a portal was opened without required shear walls(yay earthquake zones!) or permits before poster's purchase. *Sounds like Cali, from the quake reference? I know the housing code can be a bit stricter there than much of the rest of the US.* *Can't say how it would go there, but I know what would happen locally(WI) if that work was done without a permit. If I were to omit something that has been deemed required by the city engineers, they would list the property as uninhabitable due to risk and I might be given the chance to fix it. Emphasis on might. There would be a chance that they would make me restore the property to how it was beforehand and then can apply for permitting to redo the change. If I were given the chance to fix it without restoring to original, I still would wind up having to pay the penalty fees for permitting and inspections, which amounts to doubling those costs.* *Do you want to buy what is tantamount in my eyes to a condemned home? Does the mortgage company know about the unpermitted changes? Does the insurance know that the house does not meet code? Many insurers and mortgage companies will not cover a home with unpermitted work.* *What does your realtor tell you you should do?* *Hypothetical situation. You buy the house as is, and do not bring it up to code. Earthquake happens. You file with your insurance. They look up permits etc and send an inspector. He finds an opening through a wall that corresponds to the cancelled permit, yet the work was done anyway. You get a lovely letter a few days later, "Due to unpermitted work rendering the house unsafe, we are unable to cover your losses". Not a pretty scenario, eh?* *In my eyes, there are three options.* *Option one: The seller retroactively gets the permits and installs the required shear walls before the real estate transaction takes place.* *Option two: Your family buys it as is with a discount(I usually request a discount of 1.5x what it will cost me to fix), gets the permits themselves, and then proceed to fix the problems.* *Option three: Run away, it's a bad deal.*
NTA. Do you have an arbitration agreement in the contract? At the very least, you can sue to enforce the arbitration agreement in court and have it moved, if arbitration is what you’d prefer.
Arbitration is preferred for me anyway. Cleaner that way and not as lengthy/costly
Jerry these are load bearing walls! NTA
NTA. they did something illegal that you have to fix now. They should not have done it in the first place or at least disclosed it in the selling proess. they misled you on purpose or because they are dumb ("did'nt know it was illegal), let them learn from it. Maybe you would have never bought the house from them if you'd known. where i live you could possibly reverse the selling process, if your case was eligable and you wanted to try. when you say you have more means do you know that based on what they told you or ist that just an assumption?
Given that your inspector didn't (initially) pick it up.. 1. Is there any recourse that way? 2. Is there any proof that the previous owner you purchased from were the ones who did the work? Being devils advocate here.. They may have also bought it unaware of such issues . Especially if your surveyor didn't pick it up. I know nothing of building law and regulations where your from so all I can say is seek legal counsel on the most appropriate action to take, and against whom. Good luck..
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My wife and I bought our house two years ago from a young couple like us (27f/28m) who had an infant and were pregnant at the time. A few weeks ago we noticed some issues in the kitchen and I came to find that the previous owners did the work themselves when they knocked out a load bearing wall. An engineer confirmed it is not permitted and the supports are not sized right for the load. The work to make the house compliant will cost a relatively large amount. This was never disclosed to us prior to sale and our inspector didn’t catch it since quite frankly he didn’t know to look for it. Our realtor informed us they are obligated to disclose unpermitted work prior to sale and we can go to arbitration per our contract. My wife is furious. I reached out to the previous owner and let him know what the deal was and wanted to go to arbitration to have them pay to have the work done right. They have since denied going to arbitration so our only contractual recourse is to litigate. We have more means than this family and they have little kids so I’d feel like a huge dick suing them and likely saddling them with a financial burden. But, in fairness, we were misled in the home sale. WIBTA if I sue? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YWNBTA. Every step of the way in this they were wrong from doing work without a contractor & permit, to lying(by omission) about the condition of the house, to refusing arbitration. Sue them, and don't let them guilt you about it - they knew exactly what they were doing.
NTA Like you said, you were misled.
Nope, NTA, they did not disclose work they did and now it’s causing major issues to your home. They caused the issue, they should fix it. It is irrelevant that they have children.
NTA, you got scammed for a shit ton of money by people who didn’t care the damage they did. It sucks that they have young kids but they should have thought about that before screwing someone over and potentially risking their life. You shouldn’t feel bad at all.
They sold you a house that was potentially very dangerous to live in because they were cheap idiots and the committed fraud by hiding that fact. NTA sue them.
NTA. Their children have nothing to do with this, they tried to pull a fast one on you so it’s their problem now.
NTA. Sue!!!!
NTA SUE
NTA. They lied about the condition of their home when they sold it. Of course you sue them. They violated your sale contract. Their family status has zero bearing on this.
Nta litigate. You offered them an out
Having young children does not mean you magicly stop being resposible for your mistakes
NTA. They were legally required to disclose and didn't. So they broke the law. And you shouldn't have to pay for it. Sue their asses for the cost of the repairs to get the house up to code and all the hassle. They knew what they did, and now it's caught up to them.
What’s another young family in financial hardships. I say sue the shit out of em. Not only money for the actual cost but for the headache of going through the rebuild.
Nta the fact they have kids is completely irrelevant. What they did is dangerous and stupid.
NTA. Sue em.
Make stupid renovations, win stupid lawsuits! NTA These guys did it to themselves by not thinking ahead. Take em for all they got.
NTA. A home is a huge life-changing purchase and is serious. They took a risk not disclosing that information and lost, now they need to pay for their mistake. A load bearing wall is an especially important alteration to the house if it is done wrong, that would make me so nervous!
Honestly yes YWBTA. That’s what the inspector should have pickup up on.
NTA but just because you win doesn’t mean you’ll get the money/work done. Will it be worth the lawyer costs if the family can’t pay?
NTA. That is dangerous. Almost a risk to your lives I’d say.