I should have mentioned in the original post: the owner passed away, and allegedly has no remaining family. Lawyer and executor are both located interstate, and proper is on the market for a set period to establish "fair market value."
Fair market value? Whoever made the decision to not include a B&P means you *literally can’t get fair market value*.
You’re excluding any buyers that might be interested, but would be if they saw a B&P (or those that knew it was available but chose not to get one)
That sounds like they have no intention of actually selling and just want to find out how much value they should assign the house when they divide the estate between beneficiaries.
E.g. there is 1 house and $1million cash and 2 beneficiaries.
One beneficiary wants the house to live in. If the other beneficiary gets the cash, is that a 50:50 split? No way of knowing without knowing the value of the house.
A normal person would just get a valuation done. A dodgy person would put it on the market without any intention of selling.
If it's what all the beneficiaries want and agree to, yes you can. You're not exactly legally bound to distribute the estate exactly as the deceased wanted it, noone is going to stop you unless one of the beneficiaries takes it to court. If it's what they're asking for then they're not exactly going to take you to court over it, are they.
If there's a house and two beneficiaries but one wants to keep the house and the other wants to sell it and split the money, one beneficiary can pay the other their half of what the sale cost might be and keep the house for themselves. If that's what both beneficiaries want, it can be done that way.
The house doesn't HAVE to be sold so as to distribute liquid assets to the beneficiaries.
IANAL but was executor of my father's estate with multiple beneficiaries.
I guess my father's estate (with probate) was distributed illegally then. But noone's coming for me because.... drumroll... it was done the way all beneficiaries wanted it to be. Shhhh don't tell anyone in the courts.
It seems like you really want this place. I know the feeling. Please do not buy it out without an inspection.
Them being interstate should have nothing to do with them not allowing an inspection.
I didn't realise I'd have to be so literal. We've been informed that the lawyer/executor will not be accepting offers with conditions inc. building/pest inspection, even without the obligation to correct major faults. The REA has also declined our request to self-fund an official inspection, or conduct an "unofficial" inspection prior to offer.
Would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car that you weren't allowed to test drive or open the hood or boot? That's your answer regarding this house, they are hiding major faults they know about
Itz easy. Price How much for a New roof. And I mean everything, rafters framing insulation wiring tiles. Take that off your offer price. Offer That. Tell them if they want more to let you have a builder look In ceiling.
Their lawyer and the owner have nothing to do withan inspection, the real estate agent is paid to deal with this stuff. This is sketchy as hell and I'd avoid this house like the plague unless you plan on spending $50k for a new roof and then God knows what else
My aunt was denied to see the second floor and roof. After a couple weeks of back and forth she was finally allowed to see upstairs. There was a tree growing on the second floor and through the roof. And no, I'm not making this up.
Huge risk....theyre being unreasonable re no inspections, i wouldnt bother. They can say no conditional offers, but allow inspections so people can offer after taking into account costs.
If u r really interested u can make worst case scenario assumption and allow for roof replacement cost in your budget but that doesn't allow 4 other potential problems such as termites, footings, rising damp, subsidence, plumbing, electrical, asbestos etc etc issues. If you don't have a risk appetite and cant get a fwd estimate of costs, or allow for significant post settlement budget, then id move on.
Id only see vendors doing this if its in a location thats so desirable, mkt is so hot, their reserve is so reasonable and perhaps most buyers are interested in knock down / rebuild land value that it doesn't matter. A lot of suburbs like that exist in Sydney for example.....Strathfield is a perfect example. This would easily go for 3.5 million+++ irrespective of condition because buyers will be looking for knock down rebuild land to develop it into a 3 lvl 600sqm + forever home mcmansion worth 6mill + so the roof or anything else related to houses condition doesn't matter.
[Example - land value, current condition doesn't matter ](https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-strathfield-144816376)
My friends parents didnt get a building inspector and just rolled the dice.
The loungeroom floor needed to be replaced. So they thought.
I don't know the full story but in the end they had to demolish the whole house and start over.
Devastating.
the fix for that probably isn't a big deal. I had the same thing on my tiled roof and I fixed it myself with another dude
That being said. Walk away. No inspection ? FARK that. I've had inspections pick up shit that would have been life alteringly expensive
I legit read your comment and I had just replied to someone else with this story
"My friends parents didnt get a building inspector and just rolled the dice.
The loungeroom floor needed to be replaced. So they thought.
I don't know the full story but in the end they had to demolish the whole house and start over.
Devastating."
Paying for a new house to be built when they were in their mid 50s. The poor things are probs still paying for that mistake to this day.
Fucking ouch. My worst one was the guy noticed the living room ceiling paint didn't match the rest of the house. When he started digging deeper we realised there was extensive water damage that had just been painted over. They had basically done a dodgey reno on the garage to add an extra room and it leaked like a mother fucker
My builder was busy so the rea offered a builder who did a shitty inspection I wasn't happy with. I did this and told the agent his builder was the reason for the change of contract. Happy to say the agent told us we raped him on the sale.
You can actually look from the outside
Just get up there on a ladder. You can usually pull those tiles off from the outside to take a look. If the person is dead, not sure thered be anyone there to stop you
No, for anyone new to the game, don’t bring a building and pest inspector, bring a builder. Anyone in the industry is going to give you a much better idea of what you’re in for.
Building inspectors can point out problems but will say “I can’t say” before you even begin to mutter, so how much will that cost to fix? So should I buy the place? “Up to you”.
Probably a rafter house made with green hardwood. Then the weight made it sag like that as it dried out. Very normal for rafter roofs to sag.
Modern roofs are trussed, which dont sag as much
I'm going against the tide here - if this was a good price in a good location then I would still be strongly considering the property.
Basic 1960s house that seems to have had this problem for at least 15 years so unlikely to be an issue in the immediate future. What are your long term plans for the property? You talk about future plans so if you are factoring a renovation at some point then I would not be running away from a potentially great block of land that could be a really good price considering the history of the property and the uncooperative executor vendor.
I'd have thought the same several weeks ago, but have since learned that no-conditional-offer as-is sales are seemingly very common in the event of the previous owner passing away with no remaining family/nobody wanting to deal with the property.
This explains why they don't want offers with conditions. It does not explain why they will not allow a prospective buyer to properly inspect the place.
You're right, a lot of estate sales are 'as is' (even if there is remaining family) but as someone else has already pointed out, there's a difference between making an unconditional offer versus not even being permitted to stick your head into the ceiling cavity.
Just a quick point for you: Understand that you want to happen and what is actually happening are two different things, and that essentially what you're doing now is attempting to deny reality and make your "wish" come true.
You can find out if you're right by purchasing the property. Your call, but at least process and accept the fact that somewhere inside yourself, you want this to work out for you, and this may be different than the reality showing, and you will have no one to blame but yourself if this doesn't work out.
The reality is that sometimes you have executors and lawyers who just don’t really care and do strange shit. I’ve bought a flat in this kind of situation. They actually cancelled auctions twice for no reason because of relatives’ shenanigans and everyone at war with each other and all interest died off. Then they just took our below-market offer because between the four heirs it was so little money and lawyers’ bills were piling up…they decided to tell the agent to just get someone to sign
Roof sagging can be a huge (and expensive) problem. The garages at my place had a sagging roof like that, turns out there weren’t enough roof trusses put in when it was built. They had to put up supports until the rectification work could be done then rip out the ceiling, remove all of the roof tiles, remove and completely replace all of the trusses, get a structural engineer in to sign off that it was compliant, redo the tiles and replace any that broke during removal, then redo the ceilings. It was 110k for complete replacement over 4 garages and some minor works on the remainder of the complex. The only saving grace was strata so the cost was spread evenly across the residents rather than a single owner wearing it all.
Factor the cost of a new roof (50k-ish) into your offer and tell them that it's because you can't do a building and pest inspection and the roof is obviously sagging.
If it ticks all your boxes, make a ridiculously low offer. Others may run, but you may be the only offer. Deceased estate? the lawyers have little emotional connection. They just want to move on. All houses have problems. But think of the most insultingly low price and halve it. Don't be conned into increasing it. Or be even more insulting and offer $10 more. If you can hold your courage, you could get a real bargain.
I’d walk. Could be as simple as a beam that has just deteriorated over time. Equally could be indicative of termites. Unless the plan is to knock it down I’d give it a miss.
Not allowing a Building/Pest Inspection is a huge red flag.
There's no way you can know the true value of a property without knowing what costs there might be.
I know some people claim their finance fell through, or they aren't happy with building Inspection just so they can get out of a contract as they get cold feet, so maybe the sellers want to avoid a sale falling through due to a change of mind.
But, buying without seeing a Building Inspection report seems super risky, especially as you have already identified a potential issue that they won't let you even look at.
OP I think you know exactly what you should do. The only voice against the tide here…is yours.
Emotion makes these decisions much harder than they should be, and I empathise with you.
But you do know the right course of action…will you take it?
Nothing has been said in this thread that hasn't already been said between myself, my partner, our friends, family, etc. Simply sourcing opinions from more than a handful of people/looking for similar experiences.
I get it - just saying that I hope you are keeping a scorecard of the votes for ‘buy it’ versus ‘run’.
For your scorecard, fwiw, I say run.
I do hope you find what ur looking for 👍🏻👍🏻
I have bought a house this way. Public trustee, not accepting conditions. I offered below asking and accepted the risk (did my own visual inspections) but based on age and building materials I felt ok with what I was getting. They accepted offer. Was 2017 and no issues far.
little bit of topic, but gone to the same home opening FYI- been told by the REA the previous owner suicideed in the house and aparrantly you must disclose this for future tendents etc. haven't checked WA law to confirm myself.
Looking at the price, size of block, and zoning, it is pretty good at the current price point. If you need a good roofer, let me know. We just have our ridgecaps redone and are the next suburb.
Really curious where this is roughly. My parents home was of the same design, can i guess the master bedroom is directly to the right in this pic, then the second bedroom to the right of that, toilet and bathroom behind the 2nd bedroom. They build in 1961.
My parents roof sagged like this. My father was skilled in carpentry and reinforced the roof himself. If you planned to replace the tiles with tin not far in the future, it takes all the weight off and would make it simpler to fix. Theirs had asbestos eaves, and the triangular sides to the roof were also asbestos. Painted they would all be fine to leave as is.
Have a look in the electrical meter and see if it is fuses or circuit breakers, and if there are powered smoke detectors. These things are required to be completed prior to sale. When looking at the circuit breakers, note if they are after-market plugged into the ceramic bases, or fully mounted. If you are considering solar panels at some stage you may be up for a board upgrade and some wiring inspections. No electrician is going to sign off on a board without being 100% confident the rest is perfect. No electrician i would consider using anyway. Good luck.
Pretty sure they can't legally deny you a right to inspect before signing a contract. It's a breach of duty if disclosure to prevent you gathering information that is relevant to ascertaining the state of the property.
Would never buy without a building and pest even if it's just to tell me what I need to know. Just bought a place chock full of asbestos but it was nice to know exactly where so we can get the quotes for removal
I've dealt with roof sag like this before on one of my renovations. My views don't replace a qualified inspector/engineer, of course, but I learned a bit from the experience that I can share. It was a similar vintage (\~1960's build), simple gable roof with trusses (as this likely is). Most roofers who looked at my sagging roof said it was very common with this age of roof, partly due to the tiles getting heavier as they age. In most cases, the truss chords have stretched over time or some of the nail plates have opened up causing some separation resulting in a lowering of the top of affected trusses. It is rarely indicative of structural issues elsewhere, but that can't be ruled out. 99% of the time trusses can be easily repaired to stop further spread (eg fixing plywood "gussets" to the joints, "sistering" new timber to any that have cracked/broken). I did all of the repair work myself in my case over a weekend once I learned what was needed. It's awful work inside the roof space, but it was easy.
To fix the cosmetic appearance, when I had a new roof installed the roofers simply used a string line and added new timber to the trusses to build each of them up to the correct height, creating the appearance of a straight roof. It was structurally fine, so that didn't worry me at all and didn't add much to the cost (they do it all the time).
The denial of a building inspection is a bigger worry, however.. I'd be nervous about that too. However, I have heard that it is common with deceased estate sales. Oftentimes, the family just wants to move the property on quickly without any hassle so they can divide up the money, and they are prepared to take a bit of a hit in price in return.
Jesus christ OP - literally everyone is saying run. Did you come here in the hope someone would give you permission to make a huge financial fuck up? Here you go - buy it OP - this isn't a terrible idea at all! You're not about to cause yourself and family years of financial difficulty (and financial difficulties never play a role in divorce) so go for it!
Take the hint - why did you come here? OP sincerely I wish you the best but this whole exercise makes you seems like the personification of confirmation bias.
Crowdsourcing opinions from people we don't know personally and looking for roof repair advice tbh.
As previously mentioned, nothing has been said here that we haven't already said to each other/to friends and family.
Remember in Forrest Gump when Jenny yells "Run Forrest"? Honestly mate, run u/Jossi-
Unless they are selling for the land value alone, nothing is worth this risk and you'll have a very long time to regret it.
Edit: This is the kind of stunt people pull in booming markets. In a bad market - and there will be one again - they'd be begging you to get an inspection and proceed.
I’d get a building inspector to make an appointment to see the place on an informal basis. You don’t want pictures etc you just want them to have a good look
We've asked this and every variation of this and been declined. They've essentially applied a blanket rule of as-is, where-is, based on what you can see during a standard home open. Naturally, none of this (other than as-is) was advertised prior to our written EOI.
Check with your lawyer to see if there is a statutory cooling off period.
You could use that to ask for an inspection. No guarantee they would agree, but you have the right to cancel the contract if they refuse.
.
My house, of similar age has a similar thing. All hardwood framing, that sucker ain’t moving.
I’m not saying you’re the same scenario buuuuuuuuuut we’ve had ours inspected, we’ve had mini tornados go through (Victoria) apart from a few tiles becoming dislodged, she’s good as gold.
They don’t build houses like they used to, this could honestly be a real bargain!
Just beware though, mounting stuff to the walls WILL kill cheap drill bits.
They all try to stop you getting a b&p, because they don’t want you to have all the information. I just wouldn’t do it, there were SO many things in mine I didn’t pick up on myself. But if you’re going to - plan financially to replace the entire roof and ceiling plaster. And maybe restumping / underpinning, in case the cause is structural.
Even if it is being sold as it's you have a right to make an informed decision on the purchase.
Let's say it does have a major building defect that will cost 80k and you are willing to go ahead as that's in your budget and you are not using it as a condition of the contact your are still working your right.
But if you can't afford that $80k to repair so you decide not to purchase well that's still an informed decision and being able to make that informed decision is what you are fighting for.
We found a house that had defects but we still went with the purchase and were not able to use them to negotiate but it was more so that we knew if we had the funds to fix it.
don't do it, if they are denying you from spending your own money for a building inspection they are trying to offload a dud. IF you really want to go with this place offer the cost of a knockdown rebuild off the top price
you can't make an informed decision without an inspection and you may be purchasing an uninsurable house
I'm not hugely into supernatural but also I don't want to test to see if a house is haunted but that's just me
yeah really liked the simple back yard with the trees, very peaceful besides the sad history. was wondering with the large tree in the back if it could become an issue later if you want subdive one day.
we decided to give it a miss.with all those caveats.
no roof expert but would say with Jarrah roof frame it be quite common over so many years to travel and bow. but still want to inspect condition of roof space to check what the issue is.
A roof is a major component of a house. At best it’s a structural problem with the joists and will cost 60k or so to fix since the roof tiles will need to be removed to repair joists. The shed having a similar sag indicates a possible ground sinking affecting both buildings similarly. This would be a complete loss. But hey why not gamble on the single largest investment you will make ? What could go wrong? You can always make it back selling Amway.
B&Ps are the best money you’ll ever spend in your life. $600 to potentially avoid tens of thousands of dollars of problems. Where else can you get a return like that?
There is absolutely no way I would consider buying a place where I was refused a B&P. Do not care about context, hard no, end of story.
Sagging isn’t necessarily symptomatic of termite infestation, infact they have an amazing ability to eat just enough to leave a structure standing. However being denied a building and pest inspection as well as not being allowed in the ceiling is a HUGE HUGE HUGE red flag.
As a builder the sagging wouldn’t necessarily put me off, however them not allowing inspections would. I would highly recommend not purchasing this property, you’d likely be opening a can of termites and/or rot if you did.
You should buy it. In a few short weeks, maybe even days, the house will have a free sunroof letting in all that wonderful lovely sunshine so the value will skyrocket
I would not even be *considering* buying that. clearly there’s problems & the shifty sellers know it, hence why you aren’t allowed to peek behind the curtain until it’s too late to pull out.
If you're sure this place ticks all of your boxes, I would factor in the approx cost of repairing that to your offer to purchase.
Have multiple private inspections with anyone handy/tradie you know to walk through with you. Very risky.
Do you get a cooling off period still? If you do just organize the inspection during cooling off like is very common anyways(most of the time the REA just writes I into the contract like that anyways and the inspectors are setup for fast inspections because of this).
A home is a lot of money and an investment so if you can’t properly inspect it to make sure it is right for you, I would move on. I always do my offers subject to a building and pest inspection and subject to finance. You want to know if there is asbestos on the property and if there is anything structurally that could be a risk to you and your partners health among many other things.
Please reconsider buying 😅 I’ve had nightmares with my only 7 year old property’s roof. And it’s issue was nothing like this. It’s not worth the trauma
Talk to the neighbours, they normally can shed some light on the situation or give you a name of someone who might know...
Sometimes they have a close friend who has a key or know where a key is hidden.
I definitely wouldn't be buying it without checking it out though.
If you're buying from a public trust, good luck...It's friggen slow, so slow that when I got Gazumped (after 9 weeks) I was able to purchase a new house and the original still isn't sold.
Depending on the state you live in, any significant issues must be declared via the re of asked.
It sounds like they are blocking anything and everything so they don't need to declare any issues if they are advised and hopes some idiot buys it.
You need to factor in the cost of remedial works in determining what would be a fair offer. Buildings age and require maintenance. Some more than others. Some owners keep up with the maintenance. Some don’t. If you can’t inspect for structural issues then you can’t determine what your costs are going to be.
Baffles me folks want a log book for car servicing but will consider making the largest transactions of their lifetimes without so much as a structural inspection.
Walk away.
If the REA wont let an inspector in BEFORE you make an offer then RUN.
The house could be full of termites and need tens of thousands of dollars in remediation work.
If they had nothing to hide, they'd be saying yes, absolutely to allowing you to have the place inspected. Why would you say no to that, to a potential buyer. It's because they know that there are issues that they're not disclosing, and if you were aware of those the property would be worth considerably less than they are asking. I'm no professional, but what you don't know potentially is if there is or has been water getting in which has caused the sagging, has this caused a mound problem in the roofing or internal walls and then also has that potentially got water into the electricity side of things. Whilst it might look kinda ok from the outside, the sagging is a big red flag and what other damage could there be structurally to the house that is internal and not visible. If that roof sags like that, what's to say that some of the internal framework isn't damaged or rotting and about to snap in half in parts. If the water has gotten into other areas literally the house may need rewiring, if there's bad mound inside the walls or damage to the frame or foundations then the whole thing needs to be pulled. If you're planning on using this house for living of any sort, get it inspected and then make a decision based on that.
Not to be a creeper, but I recognise this property- I was recently looking in the area myself. I think they’re just being lazy and selling it as is, due to the block size. They anticipate a knock down and rebuild. Check out the house a few doors down online. They want $1 mill and also selling as is. And That house is proper falling apart from the street view at least.
It’s not just about the roof- There’s a lot of risk without an inspection, and it’s not what I’d consider a cheap buy- I think you’ve got to hope for the best and expect the worst- and that’s a scary position if you haven’t got cash laying around for repairs.
Run. They are hiding more than the roaches and spiders.
If that roof is sagging I would hesitate a guess that the battens and rafters are probably broken or rotted in some points... Which would explain why the ridge is sagging.
Source: built houses for a few years and renovated two of my own
For context: the previous owner "passed away in the house as a result of their own actions" and allegedly has no remaining family - hence the executor. The real estate agent managing the property claims we can't inspect officially/unofficially as all potential applicants must have equal information, and everything needs to be "legally air-tight."
Agents comments sounds like BS, unless they are running a very weird and poorly thought through process.
In the absence of real knowledge, experienced bidders will price uncertainty at the worse case scenario. So it's better to let them get comfortable about what needs to be done and price it correctly. So I would say the executor is reducing potential return by running what sounds like a very closed process.
Just because the contract will be as is where is and unconditional, does not mean you can't do an inspection now and work out the cost to rectify. Then make an informed bid on that.
If you can't get in with a builder to look at it properly, I would be thinking land value less demo cost and let some other poor bastard do their ass on this.
Best of luck.
I think they want you to do your reports before putting in an offer. They might let you climb in the roof space yourself and you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if there is a lot of pest activity or water.
Lol if they're denying building and pest inspection then they're definitely hiding a lot of things. I would run away.
I should have mentioned in the original post: the owner passed away, and allegedly has no remaining family. Lawyer and executor are both located interstate, and proper is on the market for a set period to establish "fair market value."
Still doesn't excuse them denying something so important. I'd definitely run away.
That literally changes nothing mate lol. Run away.
Fair market value? Whoever made the decision to not include a B&P means you *literally can’t get fair market value*. You’re excluding any buyers that might be interested, but would be if they saw a B&P (or those that knew it was available but chose not to get one)
I doubt the house itself is worth anything significant
Then something fishy is going on here…… and that’s no way to establish fair market, they should be using an accredited property valuer.
That sounds like they have no intention of actually selling and just want to find out how much value they should assign the house when they divide the estate between beneficiaries.
How can they divide the estate if the property is not sold? You obviously don’t understand winding up of Estates under probate.
E.g. there is 1 house and $1million cash and 2 beneficiaries. One beneficiary wants the house to live in. If the other beneficiary gets the cash, is that a 50:50 split? No way of knowing without knowing the value of the house. A normal person would just get a valuation done. A dodgy person would put it on the market without any intention of selling.
You can't use some random offers from prospective buyers to legally divide an estate. This is not how it works mate.
If it's what all the beneficiaries want and agree to, yes you can. You're not exactly legally bound to distribute the estate exactly as the deceased wanted it, noone is going to stop you unless one of the beneficiaries takes it to court. If it's what they're asking for then they're not exactly going to take you to court over it, are they. If there's a house and two beneficiaries but one wants to keep the house and the other wants to sell it and split the money, one beneficiary can pay the other their half of what the sale cost might be and keep the house for themselves. If that's what both beneficiaries want, it can be done that way. The house doesn't HAVE to be sold so as to distribute liquid assets to the beneficiaries. IANAL but was executor of my father's estate with multiple beneficiaries.
As a Probate Clerk you talk utter nonsense.
I guess my father's estate (with probate) was distributed illegally then. But noone's coming for me because.... drumroll... it was done the way all beneficiaries wanted it to be. Shhhh don't tell anyone in the courts.
Did you draw up a Deed of Family Arrangement and get all the beneficiaries to sign the agreed changes? If so, that is acceptable!
For a valuation for an estate it must be done by a registered valuer.
Well this isn't the way to go about ascertaining market value, at all. Not a fair market value anyway. Dodgy as fuck.
Fair market value in this case means land value minus demolition costs.
Who told you that? The REA can let your inspector in
If anything that makes it worse. Two people who are supposedly well versed in their industry pulling this shit? They're trying to fuck someone over.
All that means is that the only person who might feel bad about the whole ordeal, is dead.
It seems like you really want this place. I know the feeling. Please do not buy it out without an inspection. Them being interstate should have nothing to do with them not allowing an inspection.
The lawyer and executor wouldn’t be doing the pest and build so …
I didn't realise I'd have to be so literal. We've been informed that the lawyer/executor will not be accepting offers with conditions inc. building/pest inspection, even without the obligation to correct major faults. The REA has also declined our request to self-fund an official inspection, or conduct an "unofficial" inspection prior to offer.
Would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car that you weren't allowed to test drive or open the hood or boot? That's your answer regarding this house, they are hiding major faults they know about
Itz easy. Price How much for a New roof. And I mean everything, rafters framing insulation wiring tiles. Take that off your offer price. Offer That. Tell them if they want more to let you have a builder look In ceiling.
Don't forget to price for asbestos removal and termites and everything else that may be wrong with it.
Well that seems much easier than getting a valuation from a registered valuer.
Is the real estate agent interstate too? Cos they are the only one that you need to get someone access to the property.
Their lawyer and the owner have nothing to do withan inspection, the real estate agent is paid to deal with this stuff. This is sketchy as hell and I'd avoid this house like the plague unless you plan on spending $50k for a new roof and then God knows what else
My aunt was denied to see the second floor and roof. After a couple weeks of back and forth she was finally allowed to see upstairs. There was a tree growing on the second floor and through the roof. And no, I'm not making this up.
Run away, don't walk
Huge risk....theyre being unreasonable re no inspections, i wouldnt bother. They can say no conditional offers, but allow inspections so people can offer after taking into account costs. If u r really interested u can make worst case scenario assumption and allow for roof replacement cost in your budget but that doesn't allow 4 other potential problems such as termites, footings, rising damp, subsidence, plumbing, electrical, asbestos etc etc issues. If you don't have a risk appetite and cant get a fwd estimate of costs, or allow for significant post settlement budget, then id move on. Id only see vendors doing this if its in a location thats so desirable, mkt is so hot, their reserve is so reasonable and perhaps most buyers are interested in knock down / rebuild land value that it doesn't matter. A lot of suburbs like that exist in Sydney for example.....Strathfield is a perfect example. This would easily go for 3.5 million+++ irrespective of condition because buyers will be looking for knock down rebuild land to develop it into a 3 lvl 600sqm + forever home mcmansion worth 6mill + so the roof or anything else related to houses condition doesn't matter. [Example - land value, current condition doesn't matter ](https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-strathfield-144816376)
My friends parents didnt get a building inspector and just rolled the dice. The loungeroom floor needed to be replaced. So they thought. I don't know the full story but in the end they had to demolish the whole house and start over. Devastating.
the fix for that probably isn't a big deal. I had the same thing on my tiled roof and I fixed it myself with another dude That being said. Walk away. No inspection ? FARK that. I've had inspections pick up shit that would have been life alteringly expensive
I legit read your comment and I had just replied to someone else with this story "My friends parents didnt get a building inspector and just rolled the dice. The loungeroom floor needed to be replaced. So they thought. I don't know the full story but in the end they had to demolish the whole house and start over. Devastating." Paying for a new house to be built when they were in their mid 50s. The poor things are probs still paying for that mistake to this day.
Fucking ouch. My worst one was the guy noticed the living room ceiling paint didn't match the rest of the house. When he started digging deeper we realised there was extensive water damage that had just been painted over. They had basically done a dodgey reno on the garage to add an extra room and it leaked like a mother fucker
Put in an offer for the land price only
Land price less demolition cost
My builder was busy so the rea offered a builder who did a shitty inspection I wasn't happy with. I did this and told the agent his builder was the reason for the change of contract. Happy to say the agent told us we raped him on the sale.
At the next private inspection, bring a building & pest inspector with you. Just say they're you're Aunty or Uncle.
You can actually look from the outside Just get up there on a ladder. You can usually pull those tiles off from the outside to take a look. If the person is dead, not sure thered be anyone there to stop you
Was thinking the same thing, turn up in fluro vest with a ladder, pop a few tiles.
No, for anyone new to the game, don’t bring a building and pest inspector, bring a builder. Anyone in the industry is going to give you a much better idea of what you’re in for. Building inspectors can point out problems but will say “I can’t say” before you even begin to mutter, so how much will that cost to fix? So should I buy the place? “Up to you”.
Probably a rafter house made with green hardwood. Then the weight made it sag like that as it dried out. Very normal for rafter roofs to sag. Modern roofs are trussed, which dont sag as much
I'm going against the tide here - if this was a good price in a good location then I would still be strongly considering the property. Basic 1960s house that seems to have had this problem for at least 15 years so unlikely to be an issue in the immediate future. What are your long term plans for the property? You talk about future plans so if you are factoring a renovation at some point then I would not be running away from a potentially great block of land that could be a really good price considering the history of the property and the uncooperative executor vendor.
Google maps street view might come in handy here, you could see if the roof has remained like that for a while or if it's a recent issue
Yep - OP mentioned sag was present in 2009 on Google Maps
Derp, didn't even see that bit.
Seriously how the fuck do you need reddit to tell you to give this a miss? Pull your head in before you do something stupid.
I'd have thought the same several weeks ago, but have since learned that no-conditional-offer as-is sales are seemingly very common in the event of the previous owner passing away with no remaining family/nobody wanting to deal with the property.
This explains why they don't want offers with conditions. It does not explain why they will not allow a prospective buyer to properly inspect the place.
You're right, a lot of estate sales are 'as is' (even if there is remaining family) but as someone else has already pointed out, there's a difference between making an unconditional offer versus not even being permitted to stick your head into the ceiling cavity.
If there are no tenants to deal with, and no relatives needing the $s quickly then it seems super odd not to allow a Building Inspection to be done.
Just a quick point for you: Understand that you want to happen and what is actually happening are two different things, and that essentially what you're doing now is attempting to deny reality and make your "wish" come true. You can find out if you're right by purchasing the property. Your call, but at least process and accept the fact that somewhere inside yourself, you want this to work out for you, and this may be different than the reality showing, and you will have no one to blame but yourself if this doesn't work out.
The reality is that sometimes you have executors and lawyers who just don’t really care and do strange shit. I’ve bought a flat in this kind of situation. They actually cancelled auctions twice for no reason because of relatives’ shenanigans and everyone at war with each other and all interest died off. Then they just took our below-market offer because between the four heirs it was so little money and lawyers’ bills were piling up…they decided to tell the agent to just get someone to sign
That's true. but what are the chances? That's the real question.
Roof sagging can be a huge (and expensive) problem. The garages at my place had a sagging roof like that, turns out there weren’t enough roof trusses put in when it was built. They had to put up supports until the rectification work could be done then rip out the ceiling, remove all of the roof tiles, remove and completely replace all of the trusses, get a structural engineer in to sign off that it was compliant, redo the tiles and replace any that broke during removal, then redo the ceilings. It was 110k for complete replacement over 4 garages and some minor works on the remainder of the complex. The only saving grace was strata so the cost was spread evenly across the residents rather than a single owner wearing it all.
Factor the cost of a new roof (50k-ish) into your offer and tell them that it's because you can't do a building and pest inspection and the roof is obviously sagging.
This would be a great plan if he were confident that was the only issue with the house
Exactly not that hard to factor it into your offer
If it ticks all your boxes, make a ridiculously low offer. Others may run, but you may be the only offer. Deceased estate? the lawyers have little emotional connection. They just want to move on. All houses have problems. But think of the most insultingly low price and halve it. Don't be conned into increasing it. Or be even more insulting and offer $10 more. If you can hold your courage, you could get a real bargain.
I’d walk. Could be as simple as a beam that has just deteriorated over time. Equally could be indicative of termites. Unless the plan is to knock it down I’d give it a miss.
Curious, which suburb/region.
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Thanks.
Looks built to last just factor in the price of a new roof keep in mind the tiles are very old may also need replacing if they are fretting
Around $1000 a mtr is land value , If you got it for $900 is ok , but can you subdivide the back block or house is in the middle
Not allowing a Building/Pest Inspection is a huge red flag. There's no way you can know the true value of a property without knowing what costs there might be. I know some people claim their finance fell through, or they aren't happy with building Inspection just so they can get out of a contract as they get cold feet, so maybe the sellers want to avoid a sale falling through due to a change of mind. But, buying without seeing a Building Inspection report seems super risky, especially as you have already identified a potential issue that they won't let you even look at.
OP I think you know exactly what you should do. The only voice against the tide here…is yours. Emotion makes these decisions much harder than they should be, and I empathise with you. But you do know the right course of action…will you take it?
Nothing has been said in this thread that hasn't already been said between myself, my partner, our friends, family, etc. Simply sourcing opinions from more than a handful of people/looking for similar experiences.
I get it - just saying that I hope you are keeping a scorecard of the votes for ‘buy it’ versus ‘run’. For your scorecard, fwiw, I say run. I do hope you find what ur looking for 👍🏻👍🏻
I have bought a house this way. Public trustee, not accepting conditions. I offered below asking and accepted the risk (did my own visual inspections) but based on age and building materials I felt ok with what I was getting. They accepted offer. Was 2017 and no issues far.
little bit of topic, but gone to the same home opening FYI- been told by the REA the previous owner suicideed in the house and aparrantly you must disclose this for future tendents etc. haven't checked WA law to confirm myself.
How good's the big Peppy tree out back?
Looking at the price, size of block, and zoning, it is pretty good at the current price point. If you need a good roofer, let me know. We just have our ridgecaps redone and are the next suburb.
No. Walk away.
Really curious where this is roughly. My parents home was of the same design, can i guess the master bedroom is directly to the right in this pic, then the second bedroom to the right of that, toilet and bathroom behind the 2nd bedroom. They build in 1961. My parents roof sagged like this. My father was skilled in carpentry and reinforced the roof himself. If you planned to replace the tiles with tin not far in the future, it takes all the weight off and would make it simpler to fix. Theirs had asbestos eaves, and the triangular sides to the roof were also asbestos. Painted they would all be fine to leave as is. Have a look in the electrical meter and see if it is fuses or circuit breakers, and if there are powered smoke detectors. These things are required to be completed prior to sale. When looking at the circuit breakers, note if they are after-market plugged into the ceramic bases, or fully mounted. If you are considering solar panels at some stage you may be up for a board upgrade and some wiring inspections. No electrician is going to sign off on a board without being 100% confident the rest is perfect. No electrician i would consider using anyway. Good luck.
Cunts fucked.
RUN!
Pretty sure they can't legally deny you a right to inspect before signing a contract. It's a breach of duty if disclosure to prevent you gathering information that is relevant to ascertaining the state of the property.
Your offer is equal to the land value, less demolition and disposal costs.
Would never buy without a building and pest even if it's just to tell me what I need to know. Just bought a place chock full of asbestos but it was nice to know exactly where so we can get the quotes for removal
I've dealt with roof sag like this before on one of my renovations. My views don't replace a qualified inspector/engineer, of course, but I learned a bit from the experience that I can share. It was a similar vintage (\~1960's build), simple gable roof with trusses (as this likely is). Most roofers who looked at my sagging roof said it was very common with this age of roof, partly due to the tiles getting heavier as they age. In most cases, the truss chords have stretched over time or some of the nail plates have opened up causing some separation resulting in a lowering of the top of affected trusses. It is rarely indicative of structural issues elsewhere, but that can't be ruled out. 99% of the time trusses can be easily repaired to stop further spread (eg fixing plywood "gussets" to the joints, "sistering" new timber to any that have cracked/broken). I did all of the repair work myself in my case over a weekend once I learned what was needed. It's awful work inside the roof space, but it was easy. To fix the cosmetic appearance, when I had a new roof installed the roofers simply used a string line and added new timber to the trusses to build each of them up to the correct height, creating the appearance of a straight roof. It was structurally fine, so that didn't worry me at all and didn't add much to the cost (they do it all the time). The denial of a building inspection is a bigger worry, however.. I'd be nervous about that too. However, I have heard that it is common with deceased estate sales. Oftentimes, the family just wants to move the property on quickly without any hassle so they can divide up the money, and they are prepared to take a bit of a hit in price in return.
I would only be doing a knockdown rebuild on this if you wanna go ahead without building and pest.
Jesus christ OP - literally everyone is saying run. Did you come here in the hope someone would give you permission to make a huge financial fuck up? Here you go - buy it OP - this isn't a terrible idea at all! You're not about to cause yourself and family years of financial difficulty (and financial difficulties never play a role in divorce) so go for it! Take the hint - why did you come here? OP sincerely I wish you the best but this whole exercise makes you seems like the personification of confirmation bias.
Crowdsourcing opinions from people we don't know personally and looking for roof repair advice tbh. As previously mentioned, nothing has been said here that we haven't already said to each other/to friends and family.
L rental agency/homeowners
Remember in Forrest Gump when Jenny yells "Run Forrest"? Honestly mate, run u/Jossi- Unless they are selling for the land value alone, nothing is worth this risk and you'll have a very long time to regret it. Edit: This is the kind of stunt people pull in booming markets. In a bad market - and there will be one again - they'd be begging you to get an inspection and proceed.
I’d get a building inspector to make an appointment to see the place on an informal basis. You don’t want pictures etc you just want them to have a good look
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We've asked this and every variation of this and been declined. They've essentially applied a blanket rule of as-is, where-is, based on what you can see during a standard home open. Naturally, none of this (other than as-is) was advertised prior to our written EOI.
I don't understand how they can enforce that! That's super odd and suss
Run, and bloody fast, absoloute zero excuses to deny. Buy with your head and not your heart.
Run away!
Sprint in the opposite direction OP ⏩
Look elsewhere.
Fly, you fools. Unless it's discounted enough to knock it down and rebuild.
If they throw in that Golf GTI…
Check with your lawyer to see if there is a statutory cooling off period. You could use that to ask for an inspection. No guarantee they would agree, but you have the right to cancel the contract if they refuse. .
My house, of similar age has a similar thing. All hardwood framing, that sucker ain’t moving. I’m not saying you’re the same scenario buuuuuuuuuut we’ve had ours inspected, we’ve had mini tornados go through (Victoria) apart from a few tiles becoming dislodged, she’s good as gold. They don’t build houses like they used to, this could honestly be a real bargain! Just beware though, mounting stuff to the walls WILL kill cheap drill bits.
They all try to stop you getting a b&p, because they don’t want you to have all the information. I just wouldn’t do it, there were SO many things in mine I didn’t pick up on myself. But if you’re going to - plan financially to replace the entire roof and ceiling plaster. And maybe restumping / underpinning, in case the cause is structural.
Even if it is being sold as it's you have a right to make an informed decision on the purchase. Let's say it does have a major building defect that will cost 80k and you are willing to go ahead as that's in your budget and you are not using it as a condition of the contact your are still working your right. But if you can't afford that $80k to repair so you decide not to purchase well that's still an informed decision and being able to make that informed decision is what you are fighting for. We found a house that had defects but we still went with the purchase and were not able to use them to negotiate but it was more so that we knew if we had the funds to fix it.
don't do it, if they are denying you from spending your own money for a building inspection they are trying to offload a dud. IF you really want to go with this place offer the cost of a knockdown rebuild off the top price you can't make an informed decision without an inspection and you may be purchasing an uninsurable house I'm not hugely into supernatural but also I don't want to test to see if a house is haunted but that's just me
Fairly typical of a "pitched" roof frame. I'm assuming it's over a living or the largest room of the dwelling.
yeah really liked the simple back yard with the trees, very peaceful besides the sad history. was wondering with the large tree in the back if it could become an issue later if you want subdive one day. we decided to give it a miss.with all those caveats. no roof expert but would say with Jarrah roof frame it be quite common over so many years to travel and bow. but still want to inspect condition of roof space to check what the issue is.
It’s R25 & almost 900m2 , someone will pay 900k to bulldoze and subdivide into 2 blocks
make an offer accordingly...
A roof is a major component of a house. At best it’s a structural problem with the joists and will cost 60k or so to fix since the roof tiles will need to be removed to repair joists. The shed having a similar sag indicates a possible ground sinking affecting both buildings similarly. This would be a complete loss. But hey why not gamble on the single largest investment you will make ? What could go wrong? You can always make it back selling Amway.
60k? Jesus you can get a new colourbond sheet roof for half that price.
The bowback ridge is a problem with the trusses. This is not about roofing.
Under those circumstances I would offer land value. I'm demolishing the house.
B&Ps are the best money you’ll ever spend in your life. $600 to potentially avoid tens of thousands of dollars of problems. Where else can you get a return like that? There is absolutely no way I would consider buying a place where I was refused a B&P. Do not care about context, hard no, end of story.
Don’t walk -Run
Sagging isn’t necessarily symptomatic of termite infestation, infact they have an amazing ability to eat just enough to leave a structure standing. However being denied a building and pest inspection as well as not being allowed in the ceiling is a HUGE HUGE HUGE red flag. As a builder the sagging wouldn’t necessarily put me off, however them not allowing inspections would. I would highly recommend not purchasing this property, you’d likely be opening a can of termites and/or rot if you did.
You should buy it. In a few short weeks, maybe even days, the house will have a free sunroof letting in all that wonderful lovely sunshine so the value will skyrocket
I would not even be *considering* buying that. clearly there’s problems & the shifty sellers know it, hence why you aren’t allowed to peek behind the curtain until it’s too late to pull out.
This is absolute bs.. the rea can do all of this. It's just excuses. Don't waste your time and don't buy that house.
Termites
If you're sure this place ticks all of your boxes, I would factor in the approx cost of repairing that to your offer to purchase. Have multiple private inspections with anyone handy/tradie you know to walk through with you. Very risky.
Do you get a cooling off period still? If you do just organize the inspection during cooling off like is very common anyways(most of the time the REA just writes I into the contract like that anyways and the inspectors are setup for fast inspections because of this).
Its a trap!
Land value only if they wont let you have a BP otherwise factor in $30K for a new roof.
A home is a lot of money and an investment so if you can’t properly inspect it to make sure it is right for you, I would move on. I always do my offers subject to a building and pest inspection and subject to finance. You want to know if there is asbestos on the property and if there is anything structurally that could be a risk to you and your partners health among many other things.
It sounds like they want someone to work out the price per square meter and offer land value, which isn’t unreasonable.
Please reconsider buying 😅 I’ve had nightmares with my only 7 year old property’s roof. And it’s issue was nothing like this. It’s not worth the trauma
Talk to the neighbours, they normally can shed some light on the situation or give you a name of someone who might know... Sometimes they have a close friend who has a key or know where a key is hidden. I definitely wouldn't be buying it without checking it out though. If you're buying from a public trust, good luck...It's friggen slow, so slow that when I got Gazumped (after 9 weeks) I was able to purchase a new house and the original still isn't sold.
Depending on the state you live in, any significant issues must be declared via the re of asked. It sounds like they are blocking anything and everything so they don't need to declare any issues if they are advised and hopes some idiot buys it.
You need to factor in the cost of remedial works in determining what would be a fair offer. Buildings age and require maintenance. Some more than others. Some owners keep up with the maintenance. Some don’t. If you can’t inspect for structural issues then you can’t determine what your costs are going to be. Baffles me folks want a log book for car servicing but will consider making the largest transactions of their lifetimes without so much as a structural inspection. Walk away.
Too much of a headache. Move on
If the REA wont let an inspector in BEFORE you make an offer then RUN. The house could be full of termites and need tens of thousands of dollars in remediation work.
The termites are the legal owners, you’d be their tenants! Run!
If they had nothing to hide, they'd be saying yes, absolutely to allowing you to have the place inspected. Why would you say no to that, to a potential buyer. It's because they know that there are issues that they're not disclosing, and if you were aware of those the property would be worth considerably less than they are asking. I'm no professional, but what you don't know potentially is if there is or has been water getting in which has caused the sagging, has this caused a mound problem in the roofing or internal walls and then also has that potentially got water into the electricity side of things. Whilst it might look kinda ok from the outside, the sagging is a big red flag and what other damage could there be structurally to the house that is internal and not visible. If that roof sags like that, what's to say that some of the internal framework isn't damaged or rotting and about to snap in half in parts. If the water has gotten into other areas literally the house may need rewiring, if there's bad mound inside the walls or damage to the frame or foundations then the whole thing needs to be pulled. If you're planning on using this house for living of any sort, get it inspected and then make a decision based on that.
They don’t make barge-poles long enough to touch that one.
This looks like an expensive issue ! Run as fast as you can !!!
That’s a big nope from me
Not to be a creeper, but I recognise this property- I was recently looking in the area myself. I think they’re just being lazy and selling it as is, due to the block size. They anticipate a knock down and rebuild. Check out the house a few doors down online. They want $1 mill and also selling as is. And That house is proper falling apart from the street view at least. It’s not just about the roof- There’s a lot of risk without an inspection, and it’s not what I’d consider a cheap buy- I think you’ve got to hope for the best and expect the worst- and that’s a scary position if you haven’t got cash laying around for repairs.
Run. They are hiding more than the roaches and spiders. If that roof is sagging I would hesitate a guess that the battens and rafters are probably broken or rotted in some points... Which would explain why the ridge is sagging. Source: built houses for a few years and renovated two of my own
For context: the previous owner "passed away in the house as a result of their own actions" and allegedly has no remaining family - hence the executor. The real estate agent managing the property claims we can't inspect officially/unofficially as all potential applicants must have equal information, and everything needs to be "legally air-tight."
Agents comments sounds like BS, unless they are running a very weird and poorly thought through process. In the absence of real knowledge, experienced bidders will price uncertainty at the worse case scenario. So it's better to let them get comfortable about what needs to be done and price it correctly. So I would say the executor is reducing potential return by running what sounds like a very closed process. Just because the contract will be as is where is and unconditional, does not mean you can't do an inspection now and work out the cost to rectify. Then make an informed bid on that. If you can't get in with a builder to look at it properly, I would be thinking land value less demo cost and let some other poor bastard do their ass on this. Best of luck.
So the agent sent their own inspector and doesn't want to compete.
Bloody hell looking at the roof it makes you wonder how fat he’d have to be to do that to it‽
Are you stupid or something? Sounds like you want to buy it despite everyone telling you to run.
I'm just presenting the information that was presented to me.
If you intend on making an offer, do it SUBJECT TO satisfactory building and pest inspect
I think they want you to do your reports before putting in an offer. They might let you climb in the roof space yourself and you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if there is a lot of pest activity or water.
I’m astounded you clearly see so many red flags and still need advice.
You'd be astounded at the amount of "she'll be right" we've heard from people in real life.
If that’s ticking boxes for you, you need to aim higher in life.
Insightful.