Real Estate Transaction from hell

Editor’s note: One of the most amazing things about the real estate business is that no two transactions ever go sour exactly the same way. The difference between closing the transaction and having it “DFT” (deal fell through) is directly correlated to the agent’s problem-solving skills and how well the agent’s represent their client’s interests. Inman News would like you to share your personal “Transaction from Hell” that you successfully or unsuccessfully closed. Be sure to provide the “gory details” and what you did to close the transaction. We will publish the best of these in future columns. Send to: hell@inman.com.

An older couple, we’ll call them John and Mary Jones, purchased a house in the Southeastern Columbia area. They didn’t know, nor were they advised by their agent to have a home inspection, even though the house they were buying was more than 30 years old. The couple didn’t even know they had the right to a final walk-through inspection prior to closing. Apparently, their agent was either very inexperienced or had better things to do than to help his or her clients.

After they closed on the house and moved in, Mary was emptying water in the kitchen sink one day and it started backing up. The next day, the washing machine overflowed. John took a look under the house and found several leaks, so the Jones’s called a plumber. The plumber came out, and as he was tapping on a drain, the entire bathroom floor fell in.

Later, the clothes dryer door was not closing properly so the couple called a local repair company. The person they spoke to told them the repair company had been to the house before and had told the previous owner that parts were no longer made for that particular dryer.

The biggest problem started when the air conditioning system failed to work properly. The service person discovered there wasn’t a filter in the unit, which caused it to malfunction. The repairman decided to go into the attic to investigate further and discovered thousands of bats that were covering the eves, preventing proper ventilation in the attic.