4 ms·

In a situation like this, the key is to get a contingency in the house purchase contract -- and have the work done before the closing. We bought a house that d

by kiscica 12y ago

In a situation like this, the key is to get a contingency in the house purchase contract -- and have the work done before the closing. We bought a house that didn't have cable or DSL in a somewhat rural area -- the sellers were using 3G, satellite Internet, and dialup (!). They assured us that the only reason they hadn't had cable installed was the high cost they'd been quoted for running cable on the property (understandable as the house is almost 1/4 mile back from the street), and the cable company concurred that they'd be able to do the work, "no problem," and quoted a fee that didn't seem all that bad in the end (we took it into account when negotiating the price of the house). Nevertheless, we made the sellers agree to a contingency - cable co. would successfully complete the work (on our dime, of course) and hook us up before the closing, and the total amount wouldn't exceed what we had been quoted. If the contingency wasn't met, the sale would fall through and we'd get our deposit back. That contingency clause relieved me of a lot of stress over the next few months. Everything turned out OK in the end, but it was touch-and-go for a while. Cable co. accepted the order with no problem, did a survey I guess, called us and said they wouldn't be able to do it. They were persuaded (not sure how -- agent took care of it) to reconsider, but then came back with a quote that was at least five times higher than before. Cue lots of emails and phone calls. It was helpful having an agent who lived in the community. In the end a local contractor dug the trench for us at a very reasonable price, cable co. came down on their estimate, and the work actually was completed at just under the original quote. The dirt was literally being shoveled back over the trench on the day of the closing. As I recall it was actually a few days later that the cable guy came to do the inside wiring and "flip the switch," so strictly speaking the contingency (cable installed and working) wasn't satisfied by the closing, but we assumed we'd be OK at that point, and there were in fact no further hitches. We moved in and have enjoyed a (mostly) reliable, fast connection ever since. But we would absolutely have walked away, even though it was our "dream house," had we not been able to get the cable pulled. The contingency clause gave us the assurance that we could do that with no penalty. And, had it turned out that the work could be done but only at 5x the price, we could potentially have used the clause to negotiate a concession from the seller to cover the costs.

fixermark 12y ago
In general, yes. In this instance, the buyer was 100% convinced that the property had the service of interest and was told it did by the local monopoly in charge of providing such service. There was no work to be done before the closing because Comcast won't hook up Internet to a property for someone who isn't the property owner or resident. What you're describing would be a bit like taking out a contingency on the house actually having running water after you physically walked through the house and checked the taps and toilets, just on the off chance that the water is actually not coming from the local muni water source, but instead from an on-property aquifer that a previous owner had tapped and painstakingly routed into the house's internal plumbing, and immediately after closing the sale that aquifer runs dry. Real people don't go to that level of contract detail.
- kiscica 12y ago
  Well, at least he will know to go to that level of detail next time! Once burned, twice shy. I guess my point is that being "100% convinced that the property had the [feature] of interest" based solely on a phone call is pretty risky when you're talking about a purchase as large as a house and a feature as important (to him) as ability to get broadband internet. I totally understand and sympathize with his plight (I was screwed in basically the way, actually, many years ago, though it was a rental rather than a purchase, and DSL rather than cable, and it did work out in the end in that case too). And the degree to which he was jerked around by Comcast here is almost unreal. I could feel my blood boiling when I read the story. But in the end, I don't think he is going to have any actual legal recourse. He said this was his first home purchase; I imagine next time he will insist on seeing the connection in action next time, or getting that contingency clause in if not! In any case, your analogy doesn't really fit the situation. The seller didn't have cable, or, presumably, any fixed broadband internet service. (That in itself is a bit of a red flag; I'd think most households who can get internet service at a reasonable price these days already have it.) The situation you describe -- well, it's hard to imagine it happening, because the seller would clearly have been legally obligated to disclose that the water was from a well and not municipal, and in any case the buyer would, one hopes, have hired a home inspector who would have noted this (and probably detected issues with the well as w... umm, in addition). But it doesn't sound like the seller hid the fact that there was no internet service currently at the house, which means there's no liability there. So this is more like buying a house with no running water at all, with the knowledge that this is the case, and then getting a verbal promise from the local water company that they'd be able to hook you up. If you were to buy a house under conditions like this, I maintain that you probably would want a contingency clause on installation of the water. And for what it's worth our cable company (not Comcast, but another big one) had absolutely no problem starting the work (once they agreed to do it) for us before we were the owner or resident. If they had, we would simply have made the contingency something like "seller is obligated to have internet installed, for which the buyer will pay, prior to closing."

by kiscica 12y ago

fixermark 12y ago

In general, yes. In this instance, the buyer was 100% convinced that the property had the service of interest and was told it did by the local monopoly in charge of providing such service. There was no work to be done before the closing because Comcast won't hook up Internet to a property for someone who isn't the property owner or resident. What you're describing would be a bit like taking out a contingency on the house actually having running water after you physically walked through the house and checked the taps and toilets, just on the off chance that the water is actually not coming from the local muni water source, but instead from an on-property aquifer that a previous owner had tapped and painstakingly routed into the house's internal plumbing, and immediately after closing the sale that aquifer runs dry. Real people don't go to that level of contract detail.

kiscica 12y ago
Well, at least he will know to go to that level of detail next time! Once burned, twice shy. I guess my point is that being "100% convinced that the property had the [feature] of interest" based solely on a phone call is pretty risky when you're talking about a purchase as large as a house and a feature as important (to him) as ability to get broadband internet. I totally understand and sympathize with his plight (I was screwed in basically the way, actually, many years ago, though it was a rental rather than a purchase, and DSL rather than cable, and it did work out in the end in that case too). And the degree to which he was jerked around by Comcast here is almost unreal. I could feel my blood boiling when I read the story. But in the end, I don't think he is going to have any actual legal recourse. He said this was his first home purchase; I imagine next time he will insist on seeing the connection in action next time, or getting that contingency clause in if not! In any case, your analogy doesn't really fit the situation. The seller didn't have cable, or, presumably, any fixed broadband internet service. (That in itself is a bit of a red flag; I'd think most households who can get internet service at a reasonable price these days already have it.) The situation you describe -- well, it's hard to imagine it happening, because the seller would clearly have been legally obligated to disclose that the water was from a well and not municipal, and in any case the buyer would, one hopes, have hired a home inspector who would have noted this (and probably detected issues with the well as w... umm, in addition). But it doesn't sound like the seller hid the fact that there was no internet service currently at the house, which means there's no liability there. So this is more like buying a house with no running water at all, with the knowledge that this is the case, and then getting a verbal promise from the local water company that they'd be able to hook you up. If you were to buy a house under conditions like this, I maintain that you probably would want a contingency clause on installation of the water. And for what it's worth our cable company (not Comcast, but another big one) had absolutely no problem starting the work (once they agreed to do it) for us before we were the owner or resident. If they had, we would simply have made the contingency something like "seller is obligated to have internet installed, for which the buyer will pay, prior to closing."