A reader writes:
The first thing you saw was the bougainvillea. It grew over an arch at the gate, purple and orange, so thick you had to duck to get under it. Behind it was a two-storey house on a quiet road in Mandeville, cream with green trim, a verandah on both floors and a view across to the hills. My two daughters were with me at the first viewing. The younger one ran straight upstairs and shouted down, “Daddy, this one is my room!” Before we had even left the yard, I had already moved in in my head.
I am forty-one. I have been divorced for five years and renting for all of them. I had saved hard, my mortgage was approved, and the price was a stretch but just about possible. The agent told me there was another interested party, so I made an offer that weekend and it was accepted on the Tuesday.
The one sensible thing I did, and I have to give credit to my attorney for this, was to make the purchase subject to an inspection. I almost didn’t bother. The house looked perfect. The bank’s valuer had been and come back with a figure close to the price. But a friend from church said her cousin was a structural engineer who did pre-purchase inspections, and she practically dragged me into calling him.
He spent most of a morning at the house. He was quiet the whole time, which I took as a good sign. It was not. At the end he asked me to come and stand with him in the downstairs sitting room, and he tapped a spot on the wall near the corner with the handle of his screwdriver. It sounded different. Fresh plaster, he said, over a crack. Then he showed me another in the kitchen, and another behind a cabinet upstairs. He had looked at the columns and the way the upper floor sat on them, and in his view the house had started as a single storey and the top floor had been added later, on a structure that was never designed to carry it. He asked the agent whether there were approved plans for the second floor. The agent said he would check. He never came back with an answer.
The engineer did not tell me the house was about to fall down. He was careful about that. What he said was that he could not recommend it without much more investigation, that fixing it properly could cost a great deal, and that if it were his money, he would walk away. Then he said, “I’m sorry. I know you wanted this one.”
I sat in my car outside that bougainvillea arch for about forty minutes. I was angry with the seller, angry with the agent, and angry with myself for how badly I wanted to ignore everything I had just heard. I found myself thinking, every house has cracks. Maybe he is being too cautious. Maybe I could fix it bit by bit. The agent said almost the same thing to me on the phone that evening: “All these older houses have a little settlement. Don’t let one report frighten you.”
The hardest part was telling my girls. My younger one cried. My older one, who is thirteen and thinks she knows everything, said, “So we’re still going to be in the flat?” and went to her room and closed the door. I felt like I had failed them twice, once with the marriage and now with the house.
My mother, bless her, said, “The Lord closed that door, son.” I know she meant well, but I did not want to hear it. It did not feel like a door closing. It felt like losing something. I told her so, a bit more sharply than I should have. Later that week I sat down with the report and read it properly, twice, and something in me settled. I had not lost a house. I had nearly bought a problem. There is a difference, even if it takes a while to feel it.
I withdrew. Because of how the agreement had been written, I got my deposit back, less a few costs, and I paid the engineer’s fee, which I have never been gladder to pay for anything in my life.
It took another eight months to find the next one. It is a plain single-storey house with an ugly grille on the front that I have not yet had the money to replace, and there is no bougainvillea. The same engineer inspected it. He found a leaking valley gutter and some old termite damage in a door frame that had been treated, and told me neither was a reason to walk away. We moved in last March. My younger daughter has painted her room a shade of purple that is, I have to admit, very close to that arch.
I drive past the old house sometimes. It sold a few months after I pulled out. I hope whoever bought it had it checked. I pray for them, actually, which I did not expect to be doing.
If anybody reading this is in love with a house, I am not going to tell you not to be. I was. Just get somebody who knows what they are looking at to go through it before you sign, and when they tell you something you don’t want to hear, give yourself a few days before you decide they are wrong.
— Garfield, Manchester
Editor’s note
Garfield’s letter shows how easily a buyer’s heart gets ahead of the facts, and how much a single clause and a single morning’s inspection can protect. A lender’s valuation is not a survey of the building’s condition; many buyers benefit from an independent inspection by a qualified engineer or inspector, and from asking an attorney-at-law how to make an offer conditional on it. His story also holds a quieter lesson. Grief over a house that was not meant to be is real, and it is fine to feel it. “The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Proverbs 18:15). Seeking the knowledge first, then waiting, is rarely wasted.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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