Except there's no contractural obligation for them to agree to do anything. You made an offer, contigent on an inspection. They agreed to the offer, which if you or your agent did their job, should have had a value up to which the seller would agree to make repairs as found in an inspection. If your offer isn't contigent on your acceptance of the inspection, they're not bound to do anything at all. If it's contigent on your acceptance of the inspection but no value for repairs is stated, then they still have no obligation.
Most communities require runoff management, which may or may not mean gutters. And no, there aren't any on the local church either. Or the three-year-old commercial building I work in.
Lots of areas "gutters only over the concrete areas" is the standard...not sure about your area. Unless there is significant damage to the fascia boards, soffits, siding or foundation from the lack of gutters, my take on this would be that you're being unreasonable. If you want gutters, cool, put 'em up after you buy the place, but don't expect the seller to put out money for what is essentially an esthetics issue.
I'm no expert but I'd hold firm on having the gutters added or ask for some type of price reduction to be able to add them yourself mainly due to the water seeping into the basement. Just depends on how badly you want the house and all that comes with it. Ultimately if you buy the house the problem of seepage into the basement becomes your problem because your home inspector pointed it out and reported it to you. If you do buy the house and don't fix the problem then you could run into the same situation but be on the other end of it when you go to sell it. Again I am no expert but water seeping into the basement would be enough for me to walk away from the deal if she didn't at least give you a price reduction.
If you do buy the house I'd also be sure to regrade that area to slope away from the house.
Personally, I'm still trying to figure out why anyone considers the cost of the gutters - which will be absolutely trivial compared to the cost of just about any house - to be an issue.
What is it with first-time buyers, that they think it's reasonable to considering breaking a deal for something that is going to cost a couple of hundred bucks, at most? Cripes, don't they have ANY sense of proportion?
I agree with what you are saying to a point. However, I remember when we bought our house (6 years ago now) we had the same feelings...it was a case that we had saved for our down payment for a while and once we bought the house, it took most of our savings to pay for the down payment/closing/moving costs. We were concerned about any possible repairs we would have to make soon after moving in, as for a few months after closing, money was a bit tight. I think that is a fairly typical situation for first time buyers.
No. And not only that, many of them would rather have absolutely the most things they're entitled to than a house they actually like. I think its an ego-response the the insecurity of not knowing what the hell they're doing.
I agree with this. If you want the house, just buy it and install the gutters. If you don't want it, pretext the water infiltration as the deal breaker, not the absence of gutters, and walk away.
Inspectors don't help anyone, and most of their inspection report is to make people think they got their money's worth from the inspection.
We sold our house to first-timers. What a PITA. We almost walked away from that deal. They wanted a new house but at the same price as a 30yo house. They just didn't understand that houses need maintenance and sometimes things are just old.
After their inspection they asked us to actually cut a new vent into the attic, becuase the inspector "decided" there wasn't enough ventilation. The inspector didn't like that some of the breakers were different brands. He saw some fading paint and assumed that the siding was failing.
On the day of closing, the buyers gave a new addendum to the escrow agent to give to us, and told her not to distribute any funds until she heard from them. Bast***ds are out of contract and useing the words "dry rot" in the addnendum, and claiming theres was bad siding (the inspection report didn't have any in this spot). We slapped some primer on and called it done, since all they were seeing was a spot where something had dented the siding a couple of years earlier.
If I hadn't been towards the end of a work contract, and us needing to close on the new place while I was still employeed, we would have told them to take a long walk off a short pier.
Well, now you know what your first project will be, if you buy the house.
Doesn't matter what Seller is "stating", for WHATEVER reason Seller will not install the gutters. What is the time limit on your Inspection clause? Either exercize it within the time limit, or buy the house as-is and install the gutters yourself. Either take the house as is or walk. All rationalizations about what they SHOULD do are not worth a crap.
And if the Seller and his Agent were doing THEIR job, that value would be ZERO. Otherwise a Seller might as well just give them that money off the price up front. They are putting out a red carpet inviting their inspector to justify his fee by comingn up with things to fix up to that limit.
These customs do vary by local practice, but my policy is that they can inspect all they want, but the property will be sold As-Is. If they find something objectionable they have XX hours or X days to cancel, otherwise its take it or leave it.
I made a bid on a house once where the prospective buyers (that I lost out to) wanted the *door knobs* replaced. The sellers called me and asked me if I was still interested because they were going to refuse to do anything else asked (the doorknobs were the 2nd or 3rd ticky tack item). I already had an accepted offer somewhere else, but I marvel that someone wanted the door knobs replaced as a condition of sale.
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