Buying a house with a big issue - what to do?

[Slide Panda]

I'd get real estimates...

engineers very rarely pay for what they draw.

Real estimate is coming - but we needed something to go by now is all as the papers are due back by this evening for the seller to look over

[ducpainter]

Real estimate is coming - but we needed something to go by now is all as the papers are due back by this evening for the seller to look over

What happens if you say you want $15K off based on the engineers "off the cuff estimate"

and the actual cost is $25K?

Is he going to pay the difference?

[Slide Panda]

She actaully

And I'm getting it written to the estimate, not the off the cuff. Not letting that fish slip through my hands

[ducpainter]

She actaully

And I'm getting it written to the estimate, not the off the cuff. Not letting that fish slip through my hands

Good luck with it.

[RAT900]

If the wall is at the property line

you can always sue the uphill neighbor if the wall collapses and their soil spills across the line into your yard

this very situation made me pass up on 10 acres of mountain meadow adjoining my old Georgia mountain house

The original property owner graded the meadow down near the road....way too steep...... to create a separate carved-out parcel for a roadside store or shop or whatever

I was told by my property attorney that if I bought the land I assumed all liability for its behavior, shift, collapse etc into the adjoining road front property

irrespective of it being a "pre-existing condition" created by the owner/seller of both parcels

[Speedbag]

give the owner the option to remediate it or supply the costs to cover remediation

or walk

it is a buyer's market lately (albeit maybe not in Arlington Va.)

+1

Asking price minus repair.....

[Triple J]

The real question is it a problem, other than visually?

The ad says the house was built in 1956. I'm guessing the wall has been there since then. If so, it likely isn't a problem other than visually. Can you find out if the wall is original?

Retaining walls are always built with weep holes, and they always plug up eventually. If the wall design didn't account for water loading (due to the weep holes), then when they plug, the wall sees higher loads and tilts out. The tilting looks bad, but it also serves to allow the soil to move...which is good because it reduces the load it is applying to the wall. As such, many walls will tilt some, then never move again. Unfortunately, the human eye is very sensitive to things that are not vertical.

Of course, this may not be the case if you have a large slope behind the wall which may be failing on a larger scale (which would be very bad), but that doesn't look to be the case from the pictures.

If it was me (and I'm a geotechnical engineer), I'd try to find out how old the wall was. If it is old, then I probably wouldn't worry too much about it since it's probably been quite a while since it moved. Maybe look at the edges or cracks and try to see if you can see signs of recent movement (i.e. fresh cracks vs ones painted over 6 times). If it indeed looks old then try to get a few thousand knocked off the price. If the movement looks new, then try to get it fixed and maybe walk if you can't.

...and $15K seems low to fix that since it will likely need to be demolished and replaced to fix it properly. That looks like a public trail up above (?), so it may involve permits, city engineering review, etc.

[rgramjet]

PM me if you need a good local civil engineer and a source for wall guys. 

[Slide Panda]

Hey Triple - thanks for the educated opinion. It's quite amazing what folks here know.

Above is the back of another residential lot. This particular area is really hilly, so stuff is stacked up.

Not 100% sure on the age of the wall. Older, but doesn't appear, IMO, to be the original. Above there's another open block wall, hidden in ivy, that looks to be original. You can seen the deterioration of the blocks, and it's stayed put.

The wall closest to the house has got more issues than just the tilt - Some sections of the blocks have shifted and are protruding. So it needs more help than just a bit of tilt.

And honestly, if the seller hadn't been such a hard ass about the original negotiation process it might not be such an issue to me. But she's been difficult about prices and part of me wonders if she was padding since she knew the wall would be an issue.

Either way - we put in our statement of what we want. She can play ball or we're out. Other fish in the sea, and we've got time on our side.

Rog- I'll be in touch. I was hoping it might be for costs on an addition.. not a fix it job though.

[ducatiz]

And honestly, if the seller hadn't been such a hard ass about the original negotiation process it might not be such an issue to me. But she's been difficult about prices and part of me wonders if she was padding since she knew the wall would be an issue.

of course the seller knew about it.  and of course she doesn't want to fix it herself.

our house got a new roof before we moved in -- sellers had it done while the house was listed.  after closing, we demolished the kitchen, and the back wall of the kitchen to put in picture windows only to find out the wall was completely rotted due to water leaking in from the roof.  peeled away the wall board and foudn that the roofers had removed that whole section of plywood and scabbed rafters in alongside the rotted ones.  there was one chance in a trillion that the sellers didn't know about it.  i made pics, drafted a nice lawyerly letter, and sent it along with the estimate to replace that whole section.  It was a material fault and they knew about it -- which is fraud in every state.   Known faults have to be divulged.

They eventually paid up.  I did the work myself and they paid for most of the new kitchen. 

[herm]

It's not the buyers market it might be in other places, but still leans.

And this retaining wall issue will just drag it down. The lady who owns it needs to get a proper perspective or it's going to sit and she'll have to lower the price. I can't think that no one else would notice the leaning tower of retaining wall besides me.

We were the first offer after it'd been on market 3 weeks.. ain't a good position for her. We'll see.

My position gets better, as my house sold w/o ever going to market... I can wait her out

all other things aside, 3 weeks on the market (in this market) is NOTHING. the ink isn't even dry on the for sale sign....

[Slide Panda]

The market dynamics around here are a touch different. That's all the 3 week comment meant.

If you've got something folks really want, like my soon to be former house, it's gone fast. My place never made it to the open market...

[Slide Panda]

Victory?!

Seller agreed to a credit based on the estimate we got for the wall, so the deal is on.

Rog we'll be in touch

[DRKWNG]

The market dynamics around here are a touch different. That's all the 3 week comment meant.

If you've got something folks really want, like my soon to be former house, it's gone fast. My place never made it to the open market...

I'll second this.  I was the first person to look at the place I bought (less than eight hours after it went on the market) and there were already three other offers on it when I placed mine the next day.  Properties with character go fast around here.

[ducpainter]

Congrats