beingmichael's Blog

BeingMichael,

Didn't have any inspection-related problems or funny stories, but while looking at the home, I noticed it had a top notch garage door opening system.

After closing on the home, I noticed that the system had been replaced by a cheap one. I told my realtor that the seller had removed the system that was attached to the garage and that I wanted it put back.

The seller said he had intended to take it when he sold the home. I told him that everything attached to the house and garage at the time of viewing constitutes the "house for sale" and that nothing can be removed at closing, except for any items that the seller had listed in writing as items that would be removed at closing.

He wouldn't return the system, so I took the money he had posted for any claims as my reimbursement for his theft. He didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do, since he was wrong.

So my advice here is for anyone buying a used home. Make sure the seller doesn't remove anything that was in the house when you viewed it.

beingmichael,
here's is something about home inspections i looked into and put on the "back burner" (forgive the pun) as a potential story. the idea came out of a fire at the house diagonally behind ours in unicorporated harris county. this fire started in the attached garage and immediately spread to the main house because there was no firewall.

i found out from the harris county fire marshall that putting a firewall in this hollow breezeway "should" be done... but is not part of the harris county building code. home inspectors should notice this and flag it if it's not there... but they don't have to. (i believe it is code in houston city limits though.)

well, our house didn't have one either. we were the first owners of the new house and the builder didn't put in a firewall. this lack of firewall has contributed to the extensive damage of at least 2 fires in our neighborhood that i know of (built by the same builder), but still the fire marshall couldn't say it was a common problem. you need the firewall when you need it, if you know what i mean. there aren't any stats on fires where this firewall isn't present.

it was a big deal to me at the time, because the house fire got so big it damaged three houses around it. luckily ours wasn't one of them. i got the feeling from the fire marshall, though, that it was an insignificant issue. what people keep in their garages and how it's stored is more of a concern. our neighbor packed his own ammo in his garage. we found blown up shells around our street for a week.

When my X and I bought our home in Alvin,-a 3/2/2 on 5 acres for 79K what a deal-the inspector was AWESOME..esp the termite guy. I never woulda thought a 160 5'7 man could crawl UNDER a house on blocks. Come on..some of the clearance was less than 6"!!!