Bad Septic System

I just had a septic inspection as part of selling my house. It failed, and the septic inspector said that we needed a new leech field. My house was built just 7 years ago, but I was told that the system put in was "new technology" and they aren't even installing the type anymore.

Has anyone else run into this? Do I have any recourse with the builder?

Thanks.

Reply to
byoung2735
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You might -- a septic system certainly should not fail after only seven years. What does your lawyer say?

Reply to
Doug Miller

Who was the inspector and what does the health department think of the type of system you have? I assume it is still working, you just had some guy say it was not what he likes.

Reply to
Greg

Thanks for your response.

Yes, it is working fine from what I can tell. No odors or seepage that I've noticed either. He dug up part of the leach field and showed us some underlying gray dirt, which he said indicates a problem. He also dug down to the tank and said that the sewage level was too high.

We're going to have another septic company come out to take a look.

Reply to
byoung2735

Thanks for your response.

I'll be checking into that soon. I heard that most builders don't put warranties on the septic system though.

Reply to
byoung2735

I had a realtor selling a house for me years ago. I had the same sort of thing happen, but the septic was much older. I was not living in the house, and I had moved about 200 miles away.. The realtor told me that to list the house, the septic was too old and in order to sell, I'd have to replace it. The septic worked fine, and I refused to replace it, and told the realtor to either add an AS-IS clause to the listing, or forget the whole thing, and I'll find another realtor. The realtor added the AS-IS clause. A while later, the realtor tells me she has a buyer and the buyer wants an inspection. I told her that they can inspect if they like, but since the buyer wants the inspection, they must pay for it. A few days go by, and the realtor calls me and tells me that they inspected, and she had a company dig up part of the septic, and it was defective, and I would have to replace it. I informed her that I had already told her that I would not replace it. That's when she informed me that since the yard was already dug up, I had no choice but to replace it, and told me that I already owed this company $600 for digging up the yard. I drove to the property and found the whole yard dug up. I immediately called a lawyer. I ended up taking the realtor to court, and later had to go to court with this company when I refused to pay them. I eventually won the case, and the company had to repair my lawn, and whatever else they did to the septic, at the realtor's expense. Eventually, I found out that the realtor was related to the owner of the septic company, and was doing this to everyone. I should have sued and insisted on a complete new septic system, not just patching what they tore up, especially since the whole yard was torn up for over 4 months. The good thing about this, was that the realtor was fired from her realty company due to this.

Get a second opinion !!!!

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:52:12 GMT, "byoung2735" wrote:

Reply to
spamfree

wrote

Good story! I had a similar problem years back (when I was younger and uninformed) and I just thought "Oh, well" and paid. It was an expensive lesson, but as they say "Lesson Learned"......

Reply to
Dr. Hardcrab

Wow. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Reply to
byoung2735

maybe a note to the state contr licensing board would have been good too

Reply to
<sweat=]

I'm glad you stuck to your guns. What an asshole that realtor was.

Reply to
D'Olier

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