Agent advice, seller's disclosure, costly repairs--who is responsible?

[GoingGlam]

Hello all—I am a longtime reader of this forum, especially “Historic Houston” and have read a lot of interesting things along the way! Thanks! I am here today with some questions I hope someone can answer, or at least direct me to where I can find the answers. Apologies in advance for the long post!

My husband and I recently sold a house in an older neighborhood. The house was built in the late 50’s, and about a year ago the city notified most of the residents in our neighborhood that the sewer lines for our houses needed to be replaced, or we would be charged $20/month on our water bills. We opted for the $20/month, already knowing that we wouldn’t be in the house by the next year.

When it came time to complete the seller’s disclosure, I asked our real estate agent about the sewer line issue, telling her about the replacement vs. the $20/month. She said since there was the option of the monthly charge, we didn’t need to list it on the disclosure.

Fast forward to having sold the home and moving out. We disconnected utilities, etc., and the new owners took over. The very next day, our first day in our new home, we got a phone call from our agent saying that the buyers’ agent said they were told by the city that the water could not be connected until the sewer was replaced, and that we were responsible for replacing it because we “knew about it and did not disclose it”. I reminded her that she told us not to, and she said that unless we wanted to get sued, we needed to pay for replacing it. She would not discuss the advice she gave us about the disclosure and would only say that the bottom line was that we were responsible and we better do it right away.

We didn’t know what to do, were being pressured, and certainly didn’t want have legal problems, so we replaced the sewer. A week or so later, the new owners had their new sewer, we had spent $3400.00, and we never heard from our agent again.

We were absolutely stunned--this was the first time we sold a house, so we had done research, tried to make good decisions, listened to our realtor, and hoped for the best. It all went pretty well until this happened. The tone our agent took with us when we questioned our responsibility was upsetting, as was the lack of support from her. Of course, I have no documentation or recording of the conversation we had about the disclosure and the sewer issue, so it’s her word against ours. We resigned ourselves to it just being “one of those things” and glad to be done with it all.

Now, a couple of months down the road, we’re not so sure that this was all our responsibility. Can anyone tell me how this situation should have been handled by our agent? Does she have any responsibility regarding the advice she gave us and/or the money we had to spend because of it? If she did the right thing, then that’s fine, and we can accept that. If it wasn’t right, can we do anything about it at this point? Thanks for any insight!

[innerlooper]

If the agent is actually a Realtor® then you can take a look at the HAR Code of Ethics and potentially submit a written complaint to HAR:

 

http://www.har.com/MemberTraining/dispCodeOfEthics.cfm

 

 

You can also submit a written complaint to the TREC. 

 

https://www.trec.state.tx.us/complaintsconsumer/default.asp

 

IMHO the agent should have advised you to disclose the situation with the sewer line. Looks to me like she didn't want an "unknown" to potentially kill the deal. Agents and most sellers tend to not take disclosure seriously, and most of the time they get away with it. And when lack of disclosure causes problems down the road, the seller becomes the bagholder.

 

Note that if there had been a lawsuit, the agent would probably have been named also. She is lucky that you paid up.