We were doing some repairs and found some plumbing work that is not up to code that was done by the people who sold us the house (they were the only owners).
They failed to disclose this in the sellers disclosure (i.e., did not check the "we are not aware of any unpermitted or not up to code work done on this house"), which makes them liable for it.
Does anyone have experience going after previous owners for costs of that type of stuff? For context, this is looking like it's going to be like 20k+ to bring up to code (and we don't want to just ignore it because the we open ourselves up to the same liability when we sell the house... Also, thats dick to do).
UPDATE: had the city some look at it to figure out whether it's up to code or not and/or what can we do to bring it up to code. Even though 3 different plumbers told us there was no way it was up to code, two of the city's inspectors agreed that it was perfectly up to code. Ugly, but up to code. So crisis averted - we won't need to do any sort of expensive plumbing work, we may just need to spend a couple of grand to clean up some of the work that was done a bit sloppily.
Things we figured out in the meantime, in case it helps someone else in the future:
1. There was a permit pulled for this job originally, and the city passed the rough inspection but the owners/plumber never got the final inspection to close the permit. Which, for both the homeowner and plumbing company, is a bad, bad idea. If you're gonna pull a permit and especially if you already passed the rough inspection, close the freaking permit.
2. After talking to an attorney: had there been work done that was not up to code, your two parties to go after would have been the previous owner and the plumbing company that did the work. And your best bet there would be to play them against each other - i.e., get the owner to throw the plumbing company under the bus and say they did the work without telling them it wasn't up to code, and have the plumbing company provide documentation that says that it was not them and it was the owner who deliberately chose to do not-to-code work.
3. To those who brought it up: no, the inspector is not liable if it wouldn't be immediately obvious from a visual inspection that there is a clear violation of code - and even then, you'd have to sue them and it would not be a slam dunk thing. You'd need to prove like extreme negligence.
4. No, the realtor is not liable (nor are the brokers). The only way the realtor/broker could be held accountable is if you have any way to prove that they knew of the issue and didn't disclose it. Which is extremely hard to prove. And more importantly, if the realtor knew, the owner knew and it would be much easier to show the owner knew.
5. In case you did decide to fo after the owner, the key things to prove are two-fold: 1) that there is clear damages. In our case, having to bring the thing up to code could have cost 20K - those are real damanges, and 2) that either the owner or plumber knew this work was not done up to code. In this case, we though the permit not being closed was proof of that, but it turns out the opposite was true - they did enough of the permitting process to know it was up to code.
6. I don't think the plumbers were necessarily being malicious, but definitely don't just trust plumbers.
Now, here's where I agree with you - if this was a 1950/60s/70s house? 100%, I am not getting the city involved and I'm just rolling with the punched - because code in that time period vs. today is just worlds apart. If you have a house that old, then literally nothing is up to code, and bringing anything up to code becomes a full, whole house remodel.
But for a house built in the 1990s? Nah, your house is mostly up to code. You may have some minor ticky tacky things here and there that the city wants you to wrap up, but that's going to be minor shit that your contractor can clean up pretty damn quick. Example: did some plumbing work, got a permit. The only thing the inspector said was "hey, they missed some insulation in the attic where that pipe is going". We built a deck, pulled a permit. The only thing the inspector said "you need handrails on these stairs". Cool, 1 hour job for the contractor (that we did not have to pay for because they knew damn well they needed to build things up to code).
So that would be my advice - at some point your house will get to a point where most of the existing work will start falling out of code, and that is when you probably need to stop pulling permits unless you want to fully remodel the whole house.
They failed to disclose this in the sellers disclosure (i.e., did not check the "we are not aware of any unpermitted or not up to code work done on this house"), which makes them liable for it.
Does anyone have experience going after previous owners for costs of that type of stuff? For context, this is looking like it's going to be like 20k+ to bring up to code (and we don't want to just ignore it because the we open ourselves up to the same liability when we sell the house... Also, thats dick to do).
UPDATE: had the city some look at it to figure out whether it's up to code or not and/or what can we do to bring it up to code. Even though 3 different plumbers told us there was no way it was up to code, two of the city's inspectors agreed that it was perfectly up to code. Ugly, but up to code. So crisis averted - we won't need to do any sort of expensive plumbing work, we may just need to spend a couple of grand to clean up some of the work that was done a bit sloppily.
Things we figured out in the meantime, in case it helps someone else in the future:
1. There was a permit pulled for this job originally, and the city passed the rough inspection but the owners/plumber never got the final inspection to close the permit. Which, for both the homeowner and plumbing company, is a bad, bad idea. If you're gonna pull a permit and especially if you already passed the rough inspection, close the freaking permit.
2. After talking to an attorney: had there been work done that was not up to code, your two parties to go after would have been the previous owner and the plumbing company that did the work. And your best bet there would be to play them against each other - i.e., get the owner to throw the plumbing company under the bus and say they did the work without telling them it wasn't up to code, and have the plumbing company provide documentation that says that it was not them and it was the owner who deliberately chose to do not-to-code work.
3. To those who brought it up: no, the inspector is not liable if it wouldn't be immediately obvious from a visual inspection that there is a clear violation of code - and even then, you'd have to sue them and it would not be a slam dunk thing. You'd need to prove like extreme negligence.
4. No, the realtor is not liable (nor are the brokers). The only way the realtor/broker could be held accountable is if you have any way to prove that they knew of the issue and didn't disclose it. Which is extremely hard to prove. And more importantly, if the realtor knew, the owner knew and it would be much easier to show the owner knew.
5. In case you did decide to fo after the owner, the key things to prove are two-fold: 1) that there is clear damages. In our case, having to bring the thing up to code could have cost 20K - those are real damanges, and 2) that either the owner or plumber knew this work was not done up to code. In this case, we though the permit not being closed was proof of that, but it turns out the opposite was true - they did enough of the permitting process to know it was up to code.
6. I don't think the plumbers were necessarily being malicious, but definitely don't just trust plumbers.
I went against your advice and that was the way to go - the city showed up and said "that's totally up to code, you're good to go". Allows us to now pull a permit, finish this rebuild with a permit and close the permit and now not have any orphaned permits floating around.
Now, here's where I agree with you - if this was a 1950/60s/70s house? 100%, I am not getting the city involved and I'm just rolling with the punched - because code in that time period vs. today is just worlds apart. If you have a house that old, then literally nothing is up to code, and bringing anything up to code becomes a full, whole house remodel.
But for a house built in the 1990s? Nah, your house is mostly up to code. You may have some minor ticky tacky things here and there that the city wants you to wrap up, but that's going to be minor shit that your contractor can clean up pretty damn quick. Example: did some plumbing work, got a permit. The only thing the inspector said was "hey, they missed some insulation in the attic where that pipe is going". We built a deck, pulled a permit. The only thing the inspector said "you need handrails on these stairs". Cool, 1 hour job for the contractor (that we did not have to pay for because they knew damn well they needed to build things up to code).
So that would be my advice - at some point your house will get to a point where most of the existing work will start falling out of code, and that is when you probably need to stop pulling permits unless you want to fully remodel the whole house.
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