<p>Knowing the foundation is cracked, and agreeing that it is a problem serious enough to require disclosure, are different things.</p>
<p>Same with moisture in a crawl space.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen a contract that requires the seller to do anything to remedy defects, only that gives the buyer an out if repair costs are over a certain $ amount (which is often $0). So if the seller won’t budge (and they may not given the current market in that area) the buyer’s only options will be to walk away or deal with it themselves.</p>
<p>When we sold our last house in California, we had a buyer drop out during escrow. She had a home inspection done and had given us a list of things to fix which we did. Then we got a second buyer and he had a home inspection done and gave us his list. So we had to fix up the house twice, different things for each buyer. We did manage to get some of the first lady’s deposit released to us to cover those expenses. But the interesting experience I had was we had dual pane windows and one of them had lost its’ seal - it was the sliding glass door. The buyer insisted, absolutely insisted that we MUST buy a new door. He even priced it out for us at Home Depot. It was something like $1,500. We told him we would get the door fixed. We called a glass company and they came out and just replaced the glass insert for a couple of hundred dollars. He wasn’t happy but what could he say? The door was fixed.</p>
<p>They should have no trouble finding a Jewish day school in their area. Brighton is very close to both Newton and Brookline, and both of those towns have Jewish schools.</p>
<p>Regarding the crack in the foundation–if it’s in a concrete foundation, they should have a structural engineer look at it. The older houses around here tend to have brick or fieldstone foundations, and cracks in those are easier to deal with. I don’t think they’re that expensive to fix, but they shouldn’t let it go, even if they have to pay for the repairs themselves, which they probably will in this market.</p>
<p>In Massachusetts, the seller’s disclosure does not ask about cracks in the foundation and sellers are only required to answer the questions that are asked (moisture in the basement IS one such question). That’s why having a good inspector is critical here. We have bought four houses in Mass and sold 3 of them. In every case, we hired an inspector who specialized in antique houses, even though one house wasn’t that old, because those guys really know what to look for.</p>
<p>They should try to get the sellers to come down a bit, even though it’s a sellers’ market. here. This will only come up again with the next buyers if your kids walk away.</p>
<p>The kids had a contractor out to look at the house this afternoon but did not get back to me before Shabbat ( they are observant, I am not so much).</p>
<p>My quick research seems to indicate that in Massachusetts there is not any affirmative duty to disclose known defects in a property by a seller (I found that surprising), but that a realtor who knows of defects must disclose them to a buyer. Interesting.</p>
<p>However, the defects are glaring enough that any inspection in the future would find the same–so, if the defects are as bad as they seem they might be, I am hoping that the sellers realize that they probably won’t be able to sell to the next potential buyer to come along either…so they may as well fix the defects and make my kids happy!</p>
<p>My son and DIL had two different contractors check out the items found at the inspection to get their opinions and estimates to repair.</p>
<p>Apparently the sellers realize that any inspection in the future will find the same defects, so the are agreeing to a credit at closing. In addition, it appears that some of the defects are actually part of the common elements of the 2 unit condominium association–which has healthy reserves–and the seller and the owner of the unit are signing a letter undertaking to repair the defects that are in the common area. The sellers have also agreed to perform other less scary repairs at their own expense.</p>
<p>All of this just needs to be written up and signed, and then we will all breathe a big sigh of relief.</p>