What do we mean?
Simply know what you are paying for. To us character is the look, feel, and style of a home. Whether or not you use Elk Ridge floor plans or your own design (which we can crate for you), the home will represent you.
Why go with Elk Ridge for your new home?
Because none of our homes come with the other kind of “character”…the stuff you could live without.
We have all heard horror stories when it comes to home buying, and so we searched the web and found some of the best (or worst depending on your point of view).
Enjoy…
- When Dawn Turner’s son purchased a foreclosed home in rural Tennessee, he thought he was getting a steal. But after three years of living in the home, he and his family found out from neighbors the home was considered “unfit for human inhabitation” by local health authorities because the former owner produced methamphetamines in the home. From there, the new homeowners were financially responsible for bringing their home up to code.
- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that home sellers do not have to disclose if the home was the site of a murder, suicide, or satanic ritual. The ruling came after a homeowner filed suit because her home was the site of a murder/suicide.
- Although a home inspector passed Justin and Kate Treher’s home, he missed some problems. For instance, the previous homeowner supposedly installed and tested the sump pump in the basement, and it failed shortly after move in, flooding the basement. Then the lovely sunroom was filled with termites, costing the couple $2,000 in repairs. After the termites were eradicated, they discovered the sunroom was entirely covered in mold — there was no caulking around the windows to keep the moisture out.
- When Gregory Leeson listed his Dunmore, PA home for sale, he wanted to be honest. His home was “slightly haunted.” Nothing crazy, just the usual: footsteps, knocking, and screams. His listing went viral, and ghost hunters from around the world were knocking on his door. Turns out, he didn’t have to be so honest. Pennsylvania law only dictates that home sellers have to list any “material defects that would have a significant adverse impact on the value of the property or an unreasonable risk to the people living in the home.” And since proving you have a ghost is pretty much impossible, it’s not required. But your state might be different, so make sure to check with a real estate agent if your home gives you the heebie jeebies.
- A man who lost his home to foreclosure, and made certain the bank would remember his name. With nothing left to lose, the Texas resident poured concrete down all the drains, yanked the porch from the house with his truck, and left holes in each of the walls–sometimes multiple holes in one wall, as a final farewell. The former tenant did such a number on the place that the city government had to demolish the entire structure.
- A lettings agent in Holland Park arrived at a property with a prospective tenant to find the front door hanging on its hinges. Inside, the flat was a shambles, but the agent continued with the viewing and merely pulled the door shut when he left. It wasn’t until the owner returned home that evening that she discovered she had been burgled.
- An estate agent showed prospective buyers around an £800,000 house in Notting Hill, London, without realizing that the 55-year-old owner he presumed was asleep on the sofa had actually died. The agent admitted to a coroner’s court that he had thought “something didn’t seem right” but continued with the viewing nevertheless.
- Elizabeth Kearney, a business consultant and author, was a real estate agent years ago. She says she was pleased to get a lead for a listing in an expensive part of Los Angeles. She jotted down legal details, including the owner’s name, and visited the house. She was met at the door by the man who lived there. Kearney and the man toured the property together and talked about the listing’s details. Kearney handed paperwork to the man to sign. “Oh, I can’t sign this,” she says the man told her. “You have my name wrong.” After some back and forth, Kearney realized that she wasn’t meeting with the owner; she was speaking with the tenant. He was renting the house. The owner didn’t know about the tenant’s overtures to Kearney, and didn’t want to sell.
- The Thompsons bought a house that was for sale by the owner. The house was on a septic system, but the Thompsons took the seller’s word that the system had never given him any problems. Six months after closing the drain field started to puddle and overflow into the yard. The Thompsons called a septic company to drain and pump the entire system. Another six months down the road the system overflowed again, but this time into the neighbor’s yard. At this point the Thompsons had a smelly, overflowing septic problem as well as angry neighbors. Unsure what to do, Mr. Thompson talked to a friend who suggested he contact the county to get a copy of the original septic permit in order to make sure the seller had installed the proper system. Here begins the real horror. The seller did have a septic permit, but it was for a three-bedroom home. The Thompsons had purchased a five-bedroom, three and a half bath home. The existing septic system could never have supported a house that size. Mr. Thompson had the septic company come back out to the house to find a solution for the problem. To his surprise, the company said nothing could be done. The soil wouldn’t perk, there wasn’t enough room to install additional drain fields, and even if there were the soil could never support a house that size. If the Thompsons notify DHEC, they’ll probably be forced to move out of the house. Upon further investigation, the Thompsons discovered that the septic system had never performed properly, a fact the seller intentionally hid from them, which is a huge violation of the disclosure law.
- An older couple, we’ll call them John and Mary Jones, purchased a house in the Southeastern 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 over 30 years old. The couple did not even know they had the right to a final walk-through inspection. Apparently, their agent had better things to do than to help these clients. After they closed on the house and moved in, Mary was emptying the 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 dryer door was not closing properly so the couple called a local repair company. The person they spoke to told them that they had been to the house before and had told the previous owner that parts were no longer made for that particular dryer. The big problem started when the air conditioning wouldn’t work properly. The service person discovered that 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. But here’s the nasty part: five 55-gallon containers of bat guano – yes, that’s what you think it is – had to be removed from the attic. The guano had penetrated the insulation and wood in the attic and as a result, Mary developed a rare disease associated with being exposed to bat guano, which destroyed her peripheral vision. The Jones’s sued everyone involved, but some sharp defense lawyers caused them to have to settle for much less than the actual damages. The couple ended up moving out of the house – still making the payments – and living in a house donated by their church.
- Henry and Marcia had an unfortunate experience the first time they bought a house. Not only were Henry and Marcia inexperienced, their agent was too. The couple was excited about their first house and closed on the morning of December 12th. As soon as the final papers were signed, Henry and Marcia took some friends over to see the house and discovered disaster. The sellers’ relatives, who were doing the moving, had stripped the entire house of anything they could unscrew or pry off including light bulbs, electrical fixtures (even the plastic covers on the wall switches), curtain rod fixtures, cabinet knobs and all the drawers in the garage work bench. In addition, the seller had siphoned all of the oil out of the fuel tank after the gauge had been read for the closing adjustment. The sellers had replaced the new appliances with older models that didn’t work. The carpet had several large holes in it and the area underneath the sellers’ couch had been completely cut out. Several areas of carpet in the bedrooms had large bleach spots. Many of the windows had broken seals and would need to be replaced.
- This horror story comes right out of Lexington, South Carolina. The Turners purchased a home in a very nice subdivision on a heavily wooded lot. The family did not like trees but the house was beautiful and perfect for their needs. About 45 days after closing and moving into the house, the Turners decided to cut down all the trees and landscape and sod the yard. They called in a tree company within a few hours 43 trees had been cut and removed from the yard. Late that afternoon the developer was in the neighborhood checking on a new construction project. When he saw what the Turners had done he was livid. He stopped and informed the Turners in no uncertain terms that the subdivision restrictions prohibited the cutting of any trees unless they were diseased or dead or were a threat to a house. The restrictions further stated that if the homeowner cut down any trees unnecessarily the owner would replace them with trees of similar size. I don’t know if you have checked on the price of mature trees and the planting of them but it is very expensive. The Turners had to spend over 45 thousand dollars to replace what they hated.
Links to where we found these stories:
http://www.wisebread.com/the-8-worst-home-sale-horror-stories
http://www.creonline.com/blog/12-bizarre-real-estate-horror-stories/
http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2013/oct/31/estate-agent-horror-stories-dead-bodies-burglary
http://www.columbiascrec.com/real-estate-education/real-estate-horror-stories.html
What’s the moral of the story?
If you want zero surprises, and you want your home buying and/or building experience to be the best, then you have to work with the best…Elk Ridge Custom Homes.