This regards my sister's house in San Antonio. Purchased home ~3 years ago. She came to me for advice and I wasn't sure what to tell her, so here I am. She noticed a few things relatively soon after moving in, cracks in the ceiling to wall joints, nails popping through sheetrock in ceiling, doors not closing, etc. All things that she thought were normal for houses in her area. Had insurance adjuster out for some minor roof and water damages after a severe storm. Apparently, the adjuster gets to looking around and notices a few things right away: There was a test borehole drilled in the foundation at some point in the past and what appeared to be a thin layer of mortar applied to all exterior surfaces of the foundations. Signs of past foundation problems and possible concealment? In the past year she has begun to notice large cracks appearing in the external brick of the home, water coming up through tile floor in the kitchen during heavy rains, more severe sheetrock cracking. I know I have heard that any known foundation issues must be disclosed to a buyer. Is this still true and what are the ramifications for my sister given the above? How can two real estate agents and independent appraisers miss such an obvious thing as a borehole in her garage? If she decided to get out at this point, must she disclose all of this newly gleaned information and take the inevitable monetary hit that it brings?
She is required to disclose it as were the previous owners of the house. Did she have the home inspected before buying? She can take the previous owners to court for not disclosing it. The hard part is proving that the previous owners knew and failed to disclose. If the previous owners were the original owners of the house then it is easier as no one else could have drilled the holes.
this is the time to get an attorney and go after previous owners as well as real estate agents- had foundation problems in flower mound - had to get attorney- my experience was after 5 years the builder had to take back the house and cover all my expenses-- Loved my attorney in dallas- a guy named van shaw-- call him for a reference for a san antonio lawyer that specializes in this area of law
another thing to think about...who was the previous owner? The reason I ask - did they get it from a builder? I wonder if a builder may have bought it back from an unhappy homeowner? If that is the case you have to go through the biggest ruse in Texas........Texas Residential Construction Commission Good luck with all of that. I am not sure if Nick Danger is here in SA, but if not and she would prefer someone in SA I can refer her to a good attorney for this....not me. I would defintely tell her to talk to a lawyer. Some of the important things I think you need to know before talking to one - just save some time. Who was the real estate agent (hers and the sellers)? Who was the previous owner (personal or builder)? Was there any inspections done prior to you buying it - if so by who? Those should be enough to get the ball rolling. good luck. do you have any idea who the builder was?
I'm in SA and I've taken a foundation case from the 5th circuit to the Texas Supreme Court on certified question. Successfully. Google: "Foundation" and "Balandran". If there is a bore hole in the garage and there aren't piers, then there is an engineer's report in existence that explains why it either wasn't plumbing leaks or why repairs were not necessary. In any event, there is no excuse for it not being disclosed by the homeowners.
I wasn't trying to take away your business Nick. I just didn't think you were in SA. I agree with you about the lack of disclosure...wholly unacceptable and actionable.
I'm not looking for business, just offering a free consult. The mortgage company will be of no help at all. RE Agents, especially ones that sell Ray Ellison homes, are not likely to have insurance these days. If they do, they will have extremely high deductibles. Inspectors are going nekkid more and more. They think it makes them unfair targets, but FHA probably sends their own anyway. They take the position that their inspectors work for THEM and owe you no duty. It has been a while since I've dealt with them. The brief second owners may not have figured it out and they may have, but there's a good chance that one of the previous owners gave the engineer's report to BCAD to get their taxes lowered. That maneuver bites cheats in the *** all the time. The engineer report probably says they have no problem or the house would be piered. The insurance company engineer whores (each side had them) always said there was no problem. The previous owners knew there was a problem or they wouldn't have filed an insurance claim. There wouldn't have been bore holes unless there was an insurance claim. Problem is that Ray Ellison built ****** homes and their slabs aren't stiff enough. If water comes through the slab during heavy rains, there is a site problem as well.
Have your sister call Nick today. She's going to be looking at statute of limitations issues, at least on some of her claims. To put a little pressure on sellers, we've been attempting to get a constructive trust on their current homes, assuming they invested the proceeds of the sale in that home. Just something a little unique that helps get these things resolved.
It's almost always better not to fix the problems. Hester Prynne (sp?) had a scarlet letter "A" affixed to her frock for Adultery and this house will always have a scarlet letter "F" for foundation problems. If you spend $15k to fix the slab, you will not improve the market price by that amount in most cases.
I'll PM contact info, but publicly answer the question. It will take at least 6 months and probably longer.
Houston likes to think it is unique, but it really isn't. Hackberry Creek and Las Colinas have the highest PI's in all of Texas I'm told. Corpus is or was really bad. Everywhere except maybe West Texas and just south of SA for a stretch is bad. Florida is bad also. Colorado has issues, but they are different from ours. Let's say your house needs $20k in foundation work. Let's also say it should be worth $150k if you had no foundation issues. If you do the $20k in work, you still won't get the $150k because you are tainted. Offer buyers a $20k discount and you might be able to get $130k. FWIW, I don't believe much in most foundation work. At BEST, it will keep your house from settling if the soils shrink. There is no way that piers will keep your house from heaving. We're talking slabs on grade.
After giving this a little more thought, what would prevent her from selling the home as is and chalking everything up as normal settling. Up to this point she has not gotten a proffesional opinion on what the extent of the problem is. Put herself somewhere along this line from an earlier post...
First I would call the agent who represented your sister and get copies of any and everything your sister signed. The most important document will be the Seller's Disclosure which is required from the seller (when the proerty is listed by an agent). If the seller had ANY type of inspection in the past FOUR years (at list date) on the home they are required and that includes the listing agent to provide the report and it should have been attached to the Seller's Disclosure. Real estate Brokers are required to carry E&O insurance which has deductible of $5000.00 (at least in our office) to be paid by the agent or broker if you sue. The 5k goes to the attorney from the E&O company. Your sister know has reason to suspect foundation problems so if she had the home listed by an agent she would have to have that disclosed on a Sellers Disclosure. If you sue don't forget the guy who did the home inspection as he could have seen the site where there is bore hole. Get a copy of his report also.
My parents are going through a similar problem right now with their house. I think they eventually decided that the legal course wouldn't help out much, so they're just gonna use the $ to fix the problem. (((I don't know all the details, so don't bother asking/telling what they 'should' have done, as I won't be able to offer any more))))) Nick, I realize you're not an engineer, but from what you've seen, how are most slabs built down there? Here in WA, I always spec rebar in my slabs. Contractors always want to put in wire mesh, or fibermesh, or some other crap that doesn't do anything. We don't have expansive soils up here, but I still won't design a slab without rebar.
It's not a problem with rebar, it's a problem with beam depth. It's been a long time since I had to look at a Ray Ellison home. Shortly after the OP's sister's house was built, Ray Ellison went into bankruptcy and them came out as RAYCO and then became Kaufman and Broad or KB Homes. Ray Ellison has always been one step shy of being a manufactured home. Rayco actually built some really decent custom homes at one point, but that was a fairly brief period. The engineers that worked for Ray Ellison would specify a 14" beam when 16" or even 18" was a much safer bet based upon the soils on site. To compound matters, the crews would dig that 14" beam only 12". Ray Ellison was all about economies of scale. They would brag that all they needed was a single trash can (emptied once) for the construction of an entire home. As you probably know, the difference between a 12" and a 16" or 18" beam, in terms of stiffness, is pretty dramatic. Ray Ellison went into bankruptcy because of several developments he promised would only be owner occupied and then he found he had to sell them to investors. Renters will drive down property values. Don't take offense if you are one of the responsible renters of the world, but it's a fact of real estate life. He had a huge ******* judgment against him for that misrepresentation. It's kinda like building houses and framing them on 24" centers. Sure it'll save some money, but the house isn't going to last. Same with the slabs. It will probably take years to manifest, but in our expansive soils, it will eventually be a problem. There are lots of corners to cut and Ray Ellison cut them all.
How much money to they save by doing that, anyway? Figure a 2,500 square foot slab (and that's a big slab), and an extra 2-4 inches. Seriously, it seems like it wouldn't make such a big difference they would risk the exposure.
Apparently enough to do it. I guess when you do so many houses, it just adds up. Plus, that's just the mindset of a company like that. Save where you can. My dad's a civil eng. in SA, and he's never had many good things to say about Ray E homes. Nick, now you've got me worried - we've been pushing the idea of 24" framing. Call it advanced framing, stack framing, smart framing... a lot of the 'green' architects and builders are getting into it. Engineering-wise, it works, and they do save a ton on waste material if they do it right. Have you seen problems with houses framed like this? The first one I designed is only about 3 years old. Should I move to Venezuela now? We are pretty sensitive about floor vibrations and deflections, so we'll use pretty stiff joists and thicker plywood when we frame at 24".
When I think of a "green" house, I think of energy consumption, not how much pine it uses. I don't think we have a pine shortage, nor will we realistically ever have a pine shortage.
If people have come up with a way to make 24" centers work then that's great. It was just the first example I could think of. I'm pretty sure that was the focus of blame for a ton of the Andrew or Hugo damage and that you aren't allowed to use 24" centers on any structures in Florida anymore. The expansive soils in Texas can, in some areas I'm told, exert swell forces close to 30,000 pounds per square foot with PVRs of several inches. That would be extreme, but not insane. Since a typical home may have dead loads of around 140 pounds per quare foot, you could wet a single square foot of a 2,000 square foot home and lift the entire home several inches theoretically. The slabs need to be stiff enough to resist deflection. I use the analogy of the Pacific Ocean. It's a powerful mofo. If you are on a blow up raft, you are going to conform to the shape of the ocean. If you are on a surfboard, you can ride the waves. A Texas slab needs to be able to ride the waves. In a drought, the edges need to be able to live without soil support. In a really wet period, they need to be able to support the interior. If you have an isolated wet spot, it can act like a pebble in your shoe. If it isn't under a beam, you will surely have a mound. People find it hard to believe that concrete can bend. You point out the bent highway overpass beams they have seen going down the highway on their way to a construction site and they go "hmm". Like a paper clip, if you bend the rebar enough, eventually it will fail. That is what I have been told eventually happens to the houses with insufficient beam depth. Once that happens, there isn't much you can do to restore stability. Piers will keep the perimeter (or interior) from sagging, but a slab is not attached to most piers and if you get 15,000 pounds per square foor of swell, that house is going to "float" right up off of a pier. If it's a uniform float, it may not be a big deal, but differential swelling of the soils will cause deflection and then you see the cosmetic finishes give way.
suttree, I agree. I'm not big on the whole green movement myself - it's right up there with carbon offsets in my book. Maybe a little higher. "Green" can refer to many things: energy used to make the product, materials used in building it, energy required to heat it/generate water, even things like what chemicals are in a product. In my experience as an engineer, the things I can do that affect a house include: -calling for fly ash in cement mixes. This reduces the required amount of actual cement, which is a messy thing to produce. Plus, fly ash is a waste product itself, so reusing it like this keeps it out of the landfills. Concrete in general is not very eco-friendly, from production to placement. We try to reduce the amount of concrete in a job, just not to the point of foundations cracking. -using recycled steel for rebar. This is typically already done by most steel places. They take scrap metal from cars, and melt it down. Pretty easy. -frame roofs, walls, and floors at 24" spacings rather than 16". Ideally, the architect will layout the doors and windows on this 2' grid, so that the framing can be as efficient as possible. Obviously this reduces the amount of lumber used, but also the waste material. As mentioned above, a whole house can be built with just a single container of scrap material. Save the trees! Also, with the studs further apart, you can get more insulation in the walls, so the energy performance is better. -chemicals. Pressure-treated lumber is a big item for this. It's messy to make, plus there's the possiblity (not much, really), of the chemicals leaching out into the soil. Normally PT lumber will be used where the stud walls sit on concrete. We've had contractors just put some building paper down between the wood and concrete, and that effectively protects the wood, so they don't need to use PT. Also, we prefer using actual plywood for walls and floors, rather than OSB (oriented strand board). OSB has mucho chemicals in it, and can vent into the house. I think formaldehyde is prevelant in OSB. -catch basins. Roofs can be drained to a single barrel or tank that will store water for reusing on-site. Sometimes the water can be filtered or cleaned to reduce the bad stuff in the runoff back to the ground. I'll stop there; didn't mean to hijack the thread.
I just thought of another example of the nonsense that Ray Ellison, now KB, has engaged in. Their engineers would design the slab to include an engineered (I'm forgetting the right word) depression for setting newell posts for the base of stairs as well as for wing walls in entryways. They found that they were often off by an inch or two and they had to call someone out to chip out the concrete so they could set the post. This tiny little delay upset them so much that they started putting big buckets in the general area of where they were to set the posts when they poured the slab and then they would pull the buckets out afterwards, set the posts and grout around them. I'll see if anyone can predict why this is a huge problem. I think there are only two people reading the thread, but...
A newly poured foundation that resembles swiss cheese? And thanks again Nick. Any thoughts on my last musing? Does my sister's ignorance of the true extent of damage protect her at all if she just decided to sell at this point?
