My pregnant wife and I bought our first home in Snohomish County, WA in mid-July. The house had previously served as a rental unit, and clearly needed some TLC (new paint, floors, fixtures), but nothing dangerous came back in the inspection, and nothing indicated the house wasn't safe to live in. A few days later we hear from a neighbor that he thinks the last tenant smoked meth in the garage. We paid a licensed company to come out and test the house, and yes it turns out its contaminated to high enough levels to warrant gutting the house to it's joists, replacing all HVAC, appliances, drywall, basically everything. Even if we could afford to do this, we would still need to disclose the issue when selling.
For the time being, we've moved into my in-laws while we search for a rental unit. I should mention that moving into our own space that we can bring our baby home to is one of our top priorities. We certainly appreciate both sets of parents for being willing to take us in, but we haven't been able to be as close and enjoy/endure the pregnancy the way we were expecting to.
We've spoken to a couple of attorneys, and while we are going to engage the sellers I am not fully confident in the outcome of this strategy for us. We have nothing that shows the sellers knew and failed to disclose. We cannot afford to make mortgage payments, rental payments, and lawyer fees for the next few years. This leaves us with quickly-diminishing options. Our nuclear one would be to just walk away from the mortgage (we owe our first payment September 1), enter into foreclosure, and have our credit ruined for (7?) years minimum. Our parents are kind enough to co-sign a rental agreement with us if our credit is ruined, and they even entertained the idea of co-signing on a mortgage. My wife and I have stable income at about $200,000/year, and could pursue saving up enough cash to buy a home outright given enough saving time.
Submitted August 24, 2018 at 06:06PM by Awkward_Chocolate https://ift.tt/2MuEDrC
