Beginning with contracts signed on or after July 1, 2008, contractors that build new residential structures are required to provide a recommended maintenance schedule to the owner, or the first purchaser, of the structure.

The Construction Contractors Board, the Oregon (CCB) was mandated to adopt rules that specify minimum information, and a maintenance schedule that must include the following. By law, a maintenance schedule is required to contain the following:

1. Definitions and descriptions of moisture intrusion and water damage.

2. An explanation of how moisture intrusion and water damage can occur.

3. A description and recommended schedule for maintenance to prevent moisture intrusion.

4. Advice on how to recognize the signs of water damage.

5. Appropriate steps to take when water damage is discovered.

The CCB must make the information available at no charge to contractors that construct new residential structures. Meetings have been held for stakeholder input. The information is currently being researched, and a work group is being formed.

Contractors must include an acknowledgment of the owner’s, or first purchaser’s, receipt of the maintenance schedule, as part of the written contract.

Information will be updated on the CCB website as it becomes available. Check the Oregon Contractors Board website for updated information, or call them to get information on this new home builder requirement, and how homeowners are impacted by it.

See additional articles on the above subject within this website in the future, and in the past, leading up to this new law.

This company recommends future Oregon legislature mandated disclosures, with respect to the above issues, that would pertain to existing residential structures as well as new homes, and address home seller penalty for non-disclosure of home drainage problems to home buyers. There is a lot more trouble in old homes, with respect to home drainage, than new homes. The problem really is in the non-disclosure of homes through seller fraud and lender fraud, all going down without the knowledge of the home buyers.

This is a reprinted article that was originally written on April 23, 08. New information and forms on this sublect can be found by calling the CCB, or going to their web site.

The home inspection report indicates groundwater problems exist. What to do? Time constraints with the sale of the former home, and now the discovery of a, never disclosed, home drainage problem on the home that is in escrow, forces everyone to call a home drainage contractor, and start a new, uncharted effort to navigate this brand new, unwanted, situation.

It is essential that home buyers control the stream of pertinent drainage information during the first viewing of a potential new home by asking pertinent questions. The question that home buyers should ask about home drainage should already be memorialized in the home sellers state home disclosure, required by Oregon Law Statutes.

Questions and answers concerning home drainage facts and the knowable history of the home, as it pertains to home drainage, should be done during the first viewing of the home, not 3-4 weeks after the earnest money agreement has been signed, the appraisal completed and after the home inspection fees have been paid to the lender.

Now comes the real fly in the ointment. The lender never gives you the results of the home inspection until after you have invested lots of cash into the process. They want the timing to come in when it is really too late for you to back out. If you want to protect yourself from this situation, forget the fact that you think this statement is hype, and read how they pull it off sweetly, every time to the benefit of the lender and sellers, putting the home buyers at risk on many levels. Many times this messes the home seller up as well, as they are counting on a timely closing, as per their earnest money agreement, so they can close on the new home they are building or buying. There really should be a law that corrects this lender scam from being perpetrated on home buyers around the United States. I have observed it working the same exact way since 1978 when I first entered the real estate business as a professional.

This is one of the fine, undiscussed realities of the huge lender mess we find ourselves in presently. Home buyers and sellers need to know about this game and help insulate themselves from it. Read on please.

Most of the time when home buyers are looking for a home, they are preoccupied with the logistics of the looking process, and are not information gathering much at all. They are just looking. They are reflecting. They seldom inquire about concepts or things that they cannot see. They smile alot, and say thanks, fine, oh, or hum to break the moments tension, but this is all venting nervous energy. This only furthers their distraction from the mission of fact finding the drainage health of the home being viewed.

When emotion, either good or bad, rises up to block a home buyers inspection process, it can stop the orderly accumulation of facts in its tracks, and cost home buyers big. Down the drain go the chances for finding out the truth.

It is past time for all home buyers to get in control of the information stream, especially as it relates to the infrastructure of the home in a home market where lenders won’t lend, and lenders themselves are not disclosing home drainage problems prior to being forced to dealing with them. Lots of slip sliders out there trying to get off that home drainage pig in a buyers market. Watch out for these characters.

It is also necessary for home buyers not to fall into the common lender, late disclosure of home inspection report trap, as I started to describe earlier in this article. Stick with me here, there is lots to learn about something extremely important. From my perspective, this needs to be changed now.

Go get a beverage and read to absorb this information, to consider, and therefore protect yourself while buying a home. Read it all. The drainage health of a home is what really counts first, from a structural and an environmental standpoint.

Look at the condition of the moisture barrier plastic on the floor of the crawl space, does it show mud or white stains, effloressence, where groundwater has stained the inside and outside of the foundation wall at the ground level.

Inspect the spot footings in a crawl space, the concrete foundation, the joists, beams, pads, and the gutter systems. Look for evidence of properly installed hand excavated french drains, with exposed river rock on the surface of the french drain for maximum groundwater collection abilities when installed properly.

Meetings with the realtors, arrangements with the other family members to watch the children, if necessary, arranging time off work during business hours, are all thrown into the mix at the same time when buying a home. These distractions, and the resulting frustration can be dangerous and costly to the home buyers, who under pressure get caught like a deer in the headlights.

The pace can be a dizzy affair of always being behind for the next approintment.

This is where the rubber meets the road folks. You should never buy a home drainage pig, if you only ask and look with informed eyes and fixed mind on your objective. You should be practiced before you get to the gig. Don’t think it doesn’t matter to use the information included on this web site, which is here to teach home buyers how to understand the home drainage “due diligence” process. Home drainage should be a major consideration prior to writing an earnest money agreement to purchase any home.

Learn how to structure earnest money agreement contingencys and time frames to protect your money and time, while respecting the rights of the home seller. Articles specific to this endeavor can be read on this website.

There never is a second chance to do it right.

There are just way too many things in the mix to be looking at the crawlspace when the emotional moment heats up. The subject of home drainage, with hand excavated french drains for solving groundwater problems, as well as identifying the need to provide groundwater drainage solutions for the foundation, crawl space or basement, does not often come up, unless planned.

If your home drainage “due diligence” results only leave you with a determination that a drainage problem exists, and you are staring at a sad looking pair of sellers who you know are not telling the truth and are unwilling to do their own deferred home maintenance drainage work, and you do not have enough budget to buy the home and do all that drainage work out of pocket yourself, the obvious financial and emotional relief is to walk early and find the better home. It is right around the corner.

Home sellers who determine to deceive you always want everything to speed up. So do their agents most often. Probably not because the agent is trying to cover up something, but that it fits their normal pace of operation, and they are not required to go beyond the sellers disclosure representing the sellers knowledge of any home drainage problems. If the sellers say, no problems, you will not hear a sellers agent bring the subject up ever again.

These types of non-disclosing home sellers will not disclose anything about home drainage problems, even at the huge price of being caught committing contract fraud, bank fraud, and state real estate law, and probably more, that they could be prosecuted, fined and jailed for committing.

These are desperate people. These types of homeowners will do anything to get away from having to face their own home drainage problem requiring a significant monetary outlay. Many times these home sellers will justify their actions by affirming that because they bought the home drainage problem unaware, as in dumb, like the green buyers they were, everyone should suffer the same fate, as a matter of karmic equity, spread out to the many, instead of borne by them alone as the quintessential victim, faced to fix their own failure. Puke, cough, gasp. Wow! Right? But they do just that over and over, hundreds of thousands, to millions of times a year in the United States alone. This goes on without so much as a word of it brought up during real estate brokerage meetings with associates and brokers.

Nothing is ever discussed about this consistent lender scam of always delivering home inspections to buyers who have paid in up to their ears for a home with a drainage problem that they did not know existed. These types of home sellers are really just small time crafty criminals. You must protect yourself with knowledge from them at great cost my friends. You will easily flush them out to sit in their own stink when you realize how well prepared you are to not get fooled again.

These are just low class criminals on the present scale of law enforcement priority, but to a new home buyers they can be extremely dangerous.

The ability for you as home buyers to pull this fact finding off will be predicated on your buyers agent realtors patience, time management skills, need for a paycheck, and over all perceptive abilities, as well as communication skills. Many realtors have developed looking at homes into a sprint. A manic feeling, always on the run, can ruin what should have been a day of asking questions, watching expressions and finding out facts about the infrastructure of the home by investigation and thru the sellers.

You can tell when your going too fast when you start wondering if there is enough time to get to the next pre-scheduled appointment. Slow it down. Show some restraint. If the realtor, your buyers agent, does not acknowledge your necessity for doing home drainage due diligence, get another buyers agent. A buyers agent is free to you, and they represent you alone. They will do exactly what you want, or be replaced. They work for you. They have a fiduciary responsibility to discharge your intentions and obligations and to protect your interests under contract as it pertains to the purchase of your new home.

Often the realtors hurry up now hype is that urgency is required because another offer might come in before you, as the buyers, get an earnest money agreement accepted. Sometimes it happens that way, it has to me more than once, but more so in a hot sellers market. Besides, that is not a valid purchase motivation. Facts that determine the homes stability as an investment trump all those emotional necessities. Most likely, this hurry up game is just a tactic to try to speed the buyers to the earnest money agreement writing table.

Buyers need to slow the whole home buying process down to include their own discovery. Realtors, as we know, are folks that are on a treadmill and do not even think that things are going fast they are so used to it. It gets quite normal after awhile. I know, I did it for 25 years before starting this company over a decade ago.

Realtors, all spruced up with the blackberry or i-phone in hand, acting like they are leading a group of sugar fed 6 years old school children through a museum, on a tight schedule, while all the time admonishing the kids attempting to touch everything, not to touch anything.

You know the dance. It is called, “control”. The person who asks the questions is in control, and stays in control of the information truth. Do not let your buyers agent set the pace without consulting with him or her with respect to your needs and motivations as they pertain to home drainage information gathering and your need to be protected from buying a home drainage pig that an unwilling, un-disclosing pair of home sellers would like to dump on some unsuspecting nice young couple just like you without any remorse what so ever.

Even when these crafty type non-disclosing home sellers are trying so hard not to tell you the truth, your knowledge intimidation sharpened through preparation and quality home drainage questions will make them give themselves away if you have not already discovered the source of the home drainage groundwater problem already yourself.

If home sellers won’t disclose obvious home drainage problems to prospective buyers even when they are asked under pressure, they will not participate in funding a home drainage solution prior to escrow closing. These types of home sellers will stammer and stutter, and eventually stir in some of the truth with their lies, enough to tip you off that they know something about the drainage problems, and just have never dealt with them. Time to walk. Find what you are really looking for and do it early.

The overworked, fast paced realtor stereotype is solid in this story I know but my need to attach it in this writing is to connect this whole home drainage due diligence process to the world of home drainage, not to take shots at my realtor community. They work their butts off spending their own money to do the best job they can for you. Respect them, and they will respect your wishes without question 100% of the time.

Always another home to look at, and always another appointment to keep with a seller. Sellers and realtors are always over scheduled, by choice, and they always want to keep the process moving along quickly. As in, “yesterday if possible”.

As a former real estate broker, home builder, and commercial-investment real estate broker and company owner I can appreciate what a tread mill these realtors are on. Realtors that are ethical and well trained, service a very important legal need for home buyers in a professional manner. I do not mention this to dis my realtor friends, but to congradulate them, as I need to paint them into the picture, because they are in the picture, up to their eyebrows.

A good realtor is a wonderful asset to a buyer in particular, because they are generally, as a buyers agent, free of charge to the buyer. What’s not to like about that? Right?

Duel agency agents represent both the buyer and seller. A buyers agent is normally paid by the sellers agent which is the broker that is the listing agent but represents your interest only.

Unless you hire a buyers agent at your own cost, assuming you are the buyer, the buyers agent is literally free to you. Most realtors are over burdened with assistants, time schedules, phone calls, meetings, closings, and the like.

Seldom have buyers agent realtors even previewed the property prior to showing it. They looked at a picture and demographic information only and are therefore not in possession of any more knowledge about that property than you have. Which is no knowledge at all in all likelyhood.

Forget what the sellers say about home drainage, unless it involves the showing of the properly installed hand excavated french drain work that they contend was completed by professionals. Look yourself. Human nature and a need for a pay check, drives real estate professionals to steer the showing of the property directly into the immeadiate writing of an earnest money agreement to buy it if at all possible. This is part of their training, and also a necessity for their survival in a tough business.

So, let’s get off the realtors backs now, and discuss this home seller, non-disclosure of groundwater problems issue, without throwing the baby out with the bath water. We love everyone, especially our realtors. Right? The realtors are not at fault here because the sellers are liars about the home drainage history of their home. They are not in a legal position to do much but discharges the responsibilities of the sellers. The sellers realtor will not find the home drainage problem for you ahead of writing the earnest money agreement. It probably won’t happen that way. Discovery time is when it is too late for you to back out, and that will be when the bank finally coughs up the home inspection report around 5 days from closing of escrow or there abouts. Read on.

If you are a buyer, find a great “buyers agent” that has the speed and temperment to allow you enough time for rational investigation and discovery concerning the home drainage infrastructure and the environmental health of every home in which you are interested.

Find a buyers agent that is on the same page as you are. I suggest making my website mandatory reading prior to you beginning your home search with them. Your buyers agent must block out some time for reflection and inspection on each home. They might not like it and may not be the realtor for you. That means a much slower pace than most buyers agents are built to run at. Most will jump to hyper space again once confronted with the urgent moment. This can be your problem. Solve it, or find another buyers agent early, without wasting their time or yours. This is an emotional as well as a scheduling problem that must be understood before the home showings start.

You may have to really sweet talk that buyers agent to make it work. I suggest, be kind, patient, and bring coffee, pop, juice, frosted pastrys, or something nice like that too. Realtors love to gab and snack. To get them to hang in there, feed them. I am serious now. Quit laughing. They love donuts too, as a cheap alternative to quality whole grains etc. Do what you have to. Realtors will stand around a punch bowl with muffins and juice all morning long if they can.

In addition, have someone with you that can, along with you, take a venture into the crawlspace. This will probably not be the realtor. Bring two flashlights, and look at the spot footings, foundation post beam structure, the the color of the joists, beams and spot footings, looking for evidence of groundwater in the crawlspace, and the color and look of the moisture barrier in general. Look for mud stains and white lime effloressence stains, which is white lime stains on the moisture barrier that indicate that former groundwater entry in that area has been a problem.

Smell the overall condition of the air in the crawl space. If it appears you would need a face mask, use one. Does the ground under the moisture barrier feel like a waterbed? You might see a mud trail or effloressence trail coming from a particular corner of the crawl space. When looked at from the outside of the home at that same location is there an overflowing downspout and/or bad topography with the ground sloping towards the foundation? These are all questions to get answers for at the first viewing of the home.

I would not fear a home with an average home drainage problem myself and would just solve the problem with the sellers money, if at all possible.

Ask yourself, “has any groundwater in the past left mud on top of the moisture barrier”? Do some investigation. If you do not, and the home looks so nice above ground, but 3 weeks into a 4 week buying process the pest-dryrot and structural home inspection discloses some of the issues mentioned above you will be in for” buying and moving hysteria”, otherwise known as the “12 bar pest, dryrot and structural home inspection blues”. That’s not cool people. You will likely not sleep so well for awhile after those blues set in. So don’t even let yourself go there.

The whole scene, with respect to the timing of the release of the inspection report to the home buyers is a big lender trap. 3 weeks after the buyers have already made application for and paid for some home loan fees as well as already paid for the appraisal report and the home inspection puts the home buyers at the mercy of the lenders totally. This timing, not to the benefit of the home buyers at all, repeats itself with amazing regularity not to have been pre-planned by the lenders. Why isn’t anyone talking about this? You never heard about it did you? The lenders are running a scam on the home buyers for control purposes and to make it less likely the home buyers will back out of the home transaction after they have invested some time in the buyers, even in the face of a bad home drainage problem. By the time the home inspection report comes out the buyers have no place to move back to. Their former home has already been sold and closed so they have the money to buy the next one. They are just treading water. To back out is to get a motel for another month or two for the buyers at that point in the transaction while they start looking again for the right home, living on the street basically.

A typical scene is this: The home buyers are within a week of closing on the home they are buying and the home inspection results were just received. Late, as always. 5 days before the projected close date. Both sellers and buyers are actually at risk here, depending on their situation as either a non-disclosing seller or sellers who are victims of the lenders game as well.

It is planned that way by the lenders to give additional needed urgency and commitment to the transaction, from their perspective, and to give the buyers a good swift kick in the pants so they will hurry up and close. Keep in mind that the lender did not know a problem was going to come up, but they put themselves in a position for everyone to have lots to lose by letting the problem color the transaction. It has been that way since I entered the real estate business in 1978. This is a game created by the house, where the house always wins. Simple as that.

The buyers, most likely, have already sold their old home and the bank wants them to come to an agreement with the seller, quickly, on the home drainage or other repair issues concerning the home they want to buy. After it is literally too late for the buyers to turn around and quit the transaction, here comes bad news carried by a mumbling messenger about a home drainage problem. If these buyers did not have so much time and money invested, they probably would walk and find a better home. That is why lenders do it to the buyers and sellers every time in this exact manner.

Three weeks to a month after the report was originally ordered, the lender coughs up the appraisal and home inspection results. I know of many inspection companies that offer on the spot computer analysis within days of ordering the report. Buyers just do not understand that they can change the situation if they do it early enough. Lenders will tell you that you cannot use your own ordered home inspection company after you have already started paying them money.

Typical home inspection report problems include groundwater found in the crawl space or basement, or evidence of former groundwater in the basement or crawl space, foundation cracks or other repairs needed, dryrot work that the inspector says needs to be done as a result of a pest dryrot and structural home inspection that also indicated home drainage groundwater problems exist.

Therefore the lender would like the buyers, or sellers, to call a licensed, bonded and insured home drainage contractor, to evaluate the property, for free, and write proposals to solve the home drainage problem, and complete the installation of hand excavated french drains, all 5-7 days before closing. Good luck on that one. Installation time might be longer than that alone.

The buyers have already paid into the process of buying the home probably for nearly a month through the lender by making application for the loan, ordering and paying for the home inspection report, ordering and paying for the appraisal, selling and closing the old home, and they may have commited to paying other fees for the new home loan as well. The lender owns these home buyers, and they know it. The buyer feels commited to the home emotionally on one level, and financially on another, at this time in the transaction. Now is the time that the fun ends, and the attitudes change. No more honeymoon home buying process with happy sellers and blissfull agents.

The home inspection is usually ordered early during the home buying process. Most earnest money agreements are written to obligate the home buyers to make application for the home loan 3-5 days from the date of the earnest money agreement acceptance and the opening of escrow to close the transaction with the title company.

I have concluded over the dedades that, as I have said previously, this game of late discovery of home problems, not just home drainage problems, goes according to plan between the lenders and the home inspectors.

This does not happen once in a while, it happens every time. The excuse from the lender is that the inspector has simply been too busy to complete the work. A true statement many times. But probably not a true statement in a buyers market like this, where most inspection companies more likely resemble the Maytag repair man ad, rather than running from being overworked. Same schedule. Same scam.

The home drainage problems are reported as found only days prior to the projected closing date. This may mean that the buyers rate lock expires, even if they extend the closing date. This kink alone can cost the home buyers thousands of dollars over the extended term of the home loan, which is likely years and years.

With a loan lock about to expire, and rates headed up, the heat gets turned up under the home transaction in this example and the buyers may feel like they are in the pressure cooker with the heat turned up. This all could have all been prevented. All of it. This also affects the sellers of the home, who probably are also counting on a timely escrow closing to fund their new home, which also has a schedule to close of its own and likely the exact same set of lender circumstances that the transaction in example had as well.

The realtors, buyers, and sellers call many home drainage contractors, all at the same time, urgently, requesting an inspection to be performed the following day. Everyone seems less than mellow when they are told that no home inspection can be accomplished for them tomorrow, or perhaps not even next week. By this time, the condition that was never spelled out in the original writing of the earnest money agreement reminds the buyers that they wished they would have specified a maximum amount of home repairs money that the home sellers agreed to pay to solve any professionally found problems, that would actually solve the problems. These home buyers may wish they had some way to get out of the transaction.

Their buyers agent may never have written the repairs clause in the earnest money agreement with enough money to solve the home drainage problem even if it had been found in time. You can’t un-ring that bell. Too late now. You must suspect groundwater problems ahead of time, order your own inspection report. Do not let the lender do it. You are paying for the report either way. This way, the inspection company works on your schedule and for you, not for the lender and on his schedule, which is built to trap the buyers.

While the home drainage contractor can certainly understand the needs of the buyers and sellers at the time the urgent call comes in, the contractor most likely has a schedule of performance already lined out for himself and his crews tomorrow. The jobs in progress take priority over everything.

The contractors are probably doing the inspections that were requested a few days to a week ago, plus the actual home drainage work in process as the contractors juggle crews, attitudes, materials, weather and make it all work for the customer year round in the worst of weather. Seems like so little work gets done in a day anymore.

If you are a buyer, give yourself a break mentally from this common scenario. Start the home drainage “due diligence” process early. Do not leave the call up to the pest, dryrot and structural inspector to be made at the last moment. Make the original gut feel assessment yourself on the first day you look at the property. Do not work with a buyers agent that will not write the earnest money agreement strong enough to protect you as buyers. If their is no problems found by professionals, the sellers pay nothing anyway.

You can see if the home has a slope running towards the foundation. Look for hand excavated french drains installed. You will see exposed river rock on the surface if installed properly. Look for the exposed round river rock to be approximately 18″ from the foundation on the outside of the home, approximately 12″ wide, not located right against the foundation. A compacted splash block of dirt, sometimes covered with river rock as well, against the foundation is a good installation that prevents erosion. The rock from the inside of the hand excavated french drain to the foundation wall will just be a thin layer to prevent erosion on a compacted splash block grade to run rain off the homes walls to the french drain.

The River rock on the foundation can also mean that the home has been excavated down to the foundation footing. See how deep it goes. This may be ok if it was the last alternative, but most often indicates an additional drainage problem created rather than one solved, as groundwater just runs all the way down the foundation wall rather than run away on the bottom of the hand excavated french drain. Look for existing sump pump installations. Contractors that pitch this type of excavation many times also tell you that a sump pump is required.

Without collecting the groundwater on the outside of the home it is a foregone conclusion that groundwater will enter below grade. Sump pumps do not stop groundwater from entering below grade. If you look at a home with a sump pump, and the inspection indicates groundwater, that should be evidence enough that it does not work. Don’t get conned into installing another sump pump thinking that it will be any different. Albert Einsteins definition of insanity was: “Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results”.

The ideal look of a foundation on the outside should be one that has a compacted soil grade sloping from the foundation to an exposed rock french drain approximately 12″ wide, located around 18″ from the foundation wall. The hand excavated french drain should look very uniform in width and have 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock viewable on the surface of the system. Clean of pretty. If you see that as described, it means there is a good chance the french drain may have been engineered and installed properly. Not conclusive however. More facts must come together to be conclusive.

If there is a negative slope towards the foundation, and there is no evidence of a properly constructed french drain, located around 18″ from the foundation, there should be an investigation in the crawlspace right away. This usually is a smoking gun from a home drainage prospective where negative sloping land at the foundation exists. That is ground sloping to the foundation or that does not have a grade of at least 6″ extending 10 feet away from the foundation wall. Even if it just looks like everything is alright, look at the crawl space yourself.

If you see a hole in the dirt washed out against the foundation wall behind the downspout where the downspout overflows at the rain drain discharge, you need a new rain drain discharge probably as they are seldom cleaned out, and that one is toast and plugged. It is likely money wasted to even try to flush them, as one debris plug is moved further down the line to join another plug of debris, only to leave you with the new installation alternative being the only one that works anyway and after spending more money to get there.

Has insulation fallen on the ground within the crawlspace? Is there wood debris from construction rotting on the floor of the crawlspace? Be aware of these conditions prior to being told they exist. Ask the sellers and realtors about them, and discuss the issues prior to the sellers thinking that everything is wonderful with you and the home. You are better off as a buyer to do this prior to writing the earnest money agreement. Slow the process down to a slower logical speed for understanding these issues.

If any of these home drainage red flags exist, and you cave into the logic from the realtors and sellers, that if you do not write the earnest money agreement right now you will lose the home, I suggest that you find another home to buy, and maybe even a new buyers agent.

Set yourself up to get it done before you are trapped. Understand what I have said is true and applies to you.

When you do write the earnest money agreement, have your buyers agent write your own home drainage contingency specifically noting your suspicion of a home drainage problem and obligating the sellers to repair the home drainage problem if professionally discovered. Make sure you state that the choice of methods and contractors will belong to you the buyers and up to the cap amount stated in the repairs clause, they will pay for the work. Structure the repairs clause amount high enough to actually cover most drainage problems seldom happens. $500.-$1500. is not enough money to solve the average home drainage problem.

Put some teeth in the repairs section of the earnest money agreement. You may lose the deal too. The sellers may be covering themselves too, knowing that it will cost lots to repair the home drainage problems. It comes with the territory. Your buyers agent won’t like it. They will want you to not confront something that is not discovered. Remind them that if no problem is found, nothing needs to be paid. The sellers have just told you on their Oregon State home disclosure report that they are aware of no problems. Right? So if non exist. No money is needed. That is fair to all parties. If the sellers still buck and balk, they are probably non-disclosing home sellers.

If your home inspection indicates that there indeed is a home drainage problem and the contractor or inspector therefore agrees with the existence of your suspected drainage problem, whenever the inspection is finally done, everyone will know what is required of them emotionally and financially, and you will be better prepared as home buyers to deal with the eventual home drainage stumbling block.

Do not let the sellers or lenders hire the home inspector themself, if at all possible. The point should be obvious this late in the article. You hire the inspector after talking to the lender to make sure they will accept the finding. You are paying for it in any case. Pay the inspector directly, if possible, and get his representation. He now works for you, instead of the lender and this can be to your advantage as well, depending on the circumstances.

Specify in writing what you expect the sellers to do if groundwater problems are discovered during the inspection and how much maximum repair cap they are willing to pay to solve the drainage problem. I suggest a figure around $3500.-$4500. is more likely to be norm in that case, not $500.-$1500. as has been the average realtor standard repair clause amount for decades. It seldom applies now.

The home drainage contingency must also obligate the sellers to extend the closing date automatically, by addendum, if any repairs are required before the escrow closes. The repairs clause should obligate the sellers to pay for the drainage work, not to exceed a certain amount if found by a professional inspector or home drainage contractor, and should specify that the buyer is responsible for choosing the installation contractor and method to be used, while the sellers agree to pay for the work determined necessary, as long as it within the projected repairs amount as agreed in the earnest money agreement.

Check with the lender prior to making loan application to see how long they will lock your loan rate to allow the repairs to be accomplished. This can also cost you money from any delay to closing of escrow, even though the lender is at fault for waiting so long to trap you.

If the buyers defer their rights to the home sellers and allow them to control the inspection and information they will probably come up with a man to install a sump pump, and try to convince you that it is a groundwater solution, which it is not. It is just cheaper for the sellers, and the most common seller drainage sham out there in any real estate market.

If all is agreed between parties about the repairs, should they exist, write the earnest money agreement, set a reasonable closing date far enough out to get any discovered home drainage repair work completed prior to the closing date. The sellers and agents won’t like it, but if they want the sale, they will do it.

The trigger in the earnest money agreement should be that if the home inspector or contractor agrees with the fact there is a drainage problem, there is a problem, and the language in the earnest money agreement then prevails as a road map to complete the installation or repair and close the transaction.

Ranch homes should always get a visit to the crawl space because foundation vents are often poured too low in the foundation and groundwater runs directly into them without protection with hand excavated french drains.

Many buyers ask for a price reduction as well as the obligation for the sellers to do the drainage work prior to closing of escrow, at their own expense. This is a common pay back for non-disclosing home sellers. Negotiate the “perhaps” repair clause when the offer is originally tendered to the seller and get the sellers signatures on the earnest money agreement repairs clause in the earnest money agreement, ie. approval for them to pay for and accompish the work prior to closing on the home under the terms I have suggested with an agreement to extend escrow closing if required.

Be prepared for a home disclosure statement from the sellers that says there never has been a home drainage problem, ever. This may or may not be true.

Sellers may say “It’s my way, or the highway” in a sellers market. Never be held hostage to your emotional needs with repect to buying a home. It’s just boards and bricks. You will always find a better one if you walk away from a bad conditional feeling. Always. This may not be the home for you if you cannot get satisfaction from the sellers with respect to these issues.

As home buyers, you want to do the process of home drainage “due diligence” yourself, and early.

If you get an attitude from the agents or sellers, go on down the road. Give it another day. What a difference a day makes. Look for a new buyers agent if that breaks down too. It is as easy as one phone call and a new home that has no home drainage problems or at least ones that can be solved, with the help of a new buyers agent and renewed optimism.

The standard clause in most earnest money agreements that protects the buyers earnest money, after acceptance of the earnest money agreement and opening of escrow, says that the purchase of the home is “subject to the purchaser and the property qualifying for acceptable financing”. This means that the transaction is also subject to the completion of any repairs that are needed to fund the home loan as well, prior to closing of escrow unless otherwise agreed and stated between the lender, sellers and buyers. This includes any inspection issues identified by the inspectors that are made a condition of the loan by the lender, which may include the installation of french drains and rain drain discharges. The lender will not specify what needs to be done. That is your home drainage contractors job.

If the lender does not actually require home drainage work accomplished prior to closing of escrow, they will want the buyer to sign a release saying that the buyers understand there is a groundwater problem and that the buyers have had a meeting of the mind with them, the lender, and have signed an addendum to the earnest money agreement with agreed terms accepted on the home drainage work between the sellers and buyers, even though a professional home drainage contractor recommends the installation of hand excavated french drains.

If you find the home drainage problem, so will your inspector and home drainage contractor most likely. The bank may require you to solve the drainage problems prior to closing of escrow, or have you waive any conditions with respect to the home drainage problems prior to the funding of the loan. Formerly this only required an agreement for the sellers to either pay for the drainage work, or give the buyers some money off the purchase price, not ever solving the problem, as the buyers pocketed the cash. In time, these buyers became the next generation of non-disclosing home drainage problem home sellers as time increased the price of the work and made more damage. These days lenders are more likely to force the repairs as a condition of granting the financing for the home.

You may call the transaction off and get your earnest money back in full, and cancel the escrow, if no resolution looks possible to solve the home drainage issues as long as you have made it a contingency within the original offer at the time of the writing of the earnest money agreement to do so, on or before x amount of chosen days from the date of the signing or the earnest money agreement.

This premise is built into the boilerplate of most professionally written earnest money agreements and only needs to specify a little deeper to give the buyers a greater degree of control over the repairs inspection process.

Most earnest money agreements have clauses that protect buyers but most of the time these clauses need to be amended to suit the condition of the property. Most earnest money agreements are written to protect more of the sellers interests than the buyers as the sellers are the only clients technically and the only ones paying fees. Go figure, right? So, buyers must plug the holes that exist and solve the problems themselves.

Contact the lender to find out if they are ok with you ordering the home inspection to be done early, not at the end of the transaction.

The sellers may feel like they are in total control at the time the inspection report is received late because the transaction has gone on so long and they have already bought another home as well that they need to close escrow on.

Without repair negotiations for home drainage problems identified on the contingency previously, in the original writing of the earnest money agreement that obligates the sellers to, within a monetary range, solve and pay for any drainage problems found by professional inspection at the buyers choice of method and contractor, the seller will make you take the home “as is”, or bluff you into thinking they will back out, which they could under certain circumstances where they are not otherwise obligated in writing to perform on.

Sellers may additionally feel that because it is so late in the transaction, you as home buyers have money to lose and that you will buy the home anyway and waive the home drainage conditions even if they don’t cave in and agree to pay for drainage work because you have lots of money invested. Without your prior legal preparation in the form of a strong repairs clause, these sellers are right. They know you want the home for sure by now, and are not in a negotiating mood.

If the sellers know that you feel there is an issue with the home drainage or masonry-foundation work in the beginning, like the day you first look at the property, prior to the inspection and appraisal fees being paid to the lender, and they go along with you, accept your offer, and the inspector or professional home drainage contractor does not agree that there is a home drainage problem, the inspector or contractor will be judged as right, no problem exists. Assuming there is no drainage problem, the buyers and the sellers have lost nothing, and they can remove the contingency and close. Everyone is now happy again.

If you approach the repairs clause of the earnest money agreement in this manner, you will buy a better home, find and train more workable sellers and buyers agents and not be held hostage to the always late home inspection report lender scam, or confronted with disillusioned or crafty sellers, unhappy and overworked real estate professionals, and over worked contractors doing free estimates.

Just because the home inspection didn’t find home drainage problems when you bought the home doesn’t mean home drainage problems won’t come up for you during your ownership or when you sell the home. This happens all the time. Don’t count on anyone but yourself. Home inspectors seldom miss home drainage problems as there is always something to see for the trained eye.

Don’t get down with the “home inspection groundwater blues” without your sax and a bottle of wine. You will need to sing the blues slow and low if you were not prepared ahead of time for what was to come in the world of the home inspection report blues and the need to save your bacon and close that real estate transaction.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/29/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/168 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/168#comments Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:50:19 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/168 A new Oregon groundwater disclosure and information law concerning groundwater problems on new homes was passed in 2007. I applaud the wisdom of the Oregon state legislature in mandating a new law that requires home builder contractors to provide a disclosure and maintenance document dealing with groundwater problems, with respect to new home construction, that is to be given by the contractor/builder to the first purchaser or owner of the home only.

This is a baby step forward, as the home groundwater drainage maintenance schedule advises those new home buyers what causes groundwater problems and various methods used to solve home drainage problems.

We need further legislation that mandates the disclosure of a maintenance schedule for home groundwater drainage issues on existing homes that are sold to all buyers as well.

The new law that is now in effect covers only new construction, which pertains to few homes, and few buyers, and then phases away when the home is sold after that first sale. The amount of home groundwater drainage fraud and ignorance perpetrated by homeowners that do not disclose or discuss the issue of home groundwater drainage problems as they pertain to their home, is large.

Lenders are sitting on hundreds of homes in their REO departments that have massive groundwater drainage problems.

Many homeowners sell these homes to uneducated first time buyers that have never heard of home groundwater drainage problems, or know nothing about home drainage problems and how they can impact the value, and health of the home.

Many of these first time buyers, or more seasoned buyers for that matter, are stuck with home groundwater drainage problems that they are not familiar with. As a result, many of those home buyers begin a long process of self education with respect to the issue of home groundwater drainage. This can culminate in years of failed home groundwater drainage attempts and the homeowner being bilked by numerous contractors who profess the ability to solve the home groundwater drainage problem, but do not solve the problem. This causes homeowners lots of grief and monetary loss.

Why just mandate the maintenance information on home groundwater damage to new home buyers when the vast majority of homes with problems are older existing homes? As a practical matter, the percentage of new home sales is very small compared to the volume of existing older homes sold yearly.

I simply cannot imagine how the subject of disclosure and public information of home groundwater problems escaped the conscience, and the legislative process of the Oregon State legislature when the current 2007 legislation on this subject was drafted and passed into law. What possible reason could sustain an opposition to the inclusion of existing homes to the act that now covers new homes?

A bill that makes the inclusion of an addendum to the earnest money agreement is needed to solve this problem. Where were the Oregon real estate board members when this legislation was swept into law?

After 25 years as a former member of the National Association of Realtors and an Oregon Licensed Real Estate Broker selling homes, land to developers, and commercial-investment real estate, and currently a licensed, bonded and insured contractor in Oregon for 13 years, I am quite familiar with the methods used to protect the public from harm with respect to real estate legislation.

Most often our Oregon real estate board members are present and powerful, while legislating on behalf of the home owners of Oregon. It is amazing to me that the Oregon real estate board members and the Oregon state legislature could see the validity of the issue concerning home groundwater drainage disclosure and maintenance information given to new home buyers in its proper context, and yet throw the “baby out with the bath water” on this issue.

Those of you in the state legislature that profess to have governing skills should draft legislation that would mandate the inclusion of existing residences to the law that now mandates the builder/contractor of a new home provide the first buyer of a residence with a maintenance schedule for home groundwater problems, and provide the buyers with information on methods used to solve home groundwater drainage problems.

Why does the information disclosure only pertain to the first purchaser of the home and no other future home buyers? Who lobbied for this provision excluding the public in general from this information?

With respect to this issue, I am not convinced that state government gives a care about the public in general. The law seems to have been passed, and watered down, with the opposition of the new home builders lobby, who probably did not want the law to begin with. Home builders have been historically ignorant and cheap about the inclusion of home drainage systems into the budget of their homes.

The tendency is to install a perforated pipe with a sock on it, laid flat on the foundation footing of the home, connecting the downspouts to the storm sewer, and calling it good, with respect to mandated home drainage, seems to still be the extent to which planning departments deal with home drainage problems.

See articles on this subject in this blog. It is to this extent only that planning departments mandate home groundwater removal systems other than plumbing downspouts.

The planning departments of cities and counties, and the builders of new homes seem uneducated on the subject of hand excavated french drains, or they choose to ignore the evidence before them.

So it is, behind the scenes of public view< with respect to home groundwater drainage issues.

This new legislation, while appreciated in part, seems to me just another half hearted political attempt to satisfy everyone but the public.

The business of legislation on the state and federal level should be conducted by people of public conscience and science only, not lawyers with education and experience empowered by political and functional manipulation for the greater good of government and corporate interests.

When legislation for the public good, as it pertains to laws protecting the interests of citizens, as compared to the interests of government or corporate interests, is confronted by groups of organized and financed opponents, the history of this confrontation is that the less financed and organized public, individual citizens, will lose.

Following the loss, it is possible to re-group and organize to win in the end, only to face further challenges by the financed opponents to overturn the effort. Such is the price of liberty.

Write the governor and your Oregon state representatives. Encourage the passage of a law to mandate information and maintenance schedules on home groundwater drainage for all existing homes in Oregon.

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