Tip #1: Be open and
straightforward:
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be open and straightforward in
a real estate transaction including the home inspection process. You should make any
previous inspection or engineering
reports available to the buyer and this should be done in a timely manner.
If you have made repairs to the house and/or to the foundation, that fact along
with any details known to you should be disclosed.
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Tip #2: Attend the inspection or
leave key information:
In our opinion, it is usually to your advantage to be at the house during the
inspection. This is not always the case. Sometimes a seller has
other commitments or the buyer may not be comfortable with the seller
present. In addition, some sellers take home inspections very personally
and find the whole process extremely distressing. If you fit into this
category, you should probably not attend the inspection.
If you do not attend the inspection, you would be well advised
to leave the following information for the inspector or engineer.
 | The age of the house.
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| History of any known foundation repairs
including any available documentation.
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| History of any known drywall repairs.
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| History of any known repairs to brick
veneer and stucco.
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| History of any known plumbing leaks under
or near the foundation.
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| Any recent major changes to the house or landscaping.
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| Any house plans you may have.
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Tip #3: Listen to your
agent: An
experienced and knowledgeable real estate agent is an expert on the buying and
selling of houses. They understand what your buyers are looking for, how
they are likely to view your house and how the competition stacks up and
compares to your house. Your agent will advise you on how to best prepare
your house for the market. Listen carefully and take what you hear to
heart.
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Tip #4: Consider retaining your
own engineer prior to the sale: If your house has had
foundation repair in the past or if it shows any signs of possible damage due to
foundation movement, you should consider retaining an engineer to prepare an
engineering foundation evaluation prior to selling or even listing the
house. The engineering report should be disclosed
to any potential buyer. The engineering report becomes a form of
professional 3rd party disclosure. With a report in hand, you can proceed to make any cosmetic
repairs necessary to make the house more attractive to a potential buyer without
placing yourself in a position of being charged with trying to hide
something. Obtaining a professional engineering evaluation of the
performance of the foundation is likely to make the entire selling process go
smoother. If the foundation does need foundation repair, you will at least
know up front you will have to deal with.
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Tip #5: Understand the inspection
process:
It is very important for you as a seller to understand
the different roles played by real estate inspectors and engineers in the inspection process.
From a practical perspective the difference between what a real
estate inspector and an engineer comes down to what they report if the
foundation performance is judged to be inadequate.
| The Real Estate Inspection Approach:
Under the rules licensed real estate inspectors are required to
follow, if they judge the performance of the foundation to be
inadequate, the inspector is required to report the foundation as in
need of repair.
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| The Engineering Approach: An
example of an engineering approach can be found in a publication of Texas Section of the
American Society of Civil Engineers. The guidelines state that if the
foundation performance is judged to be inadequate, the engineer
should report to his client the options that are available to
improve the performance. Those options may include structural
foundation repair but also may include non-structural options such
as landscaping changes, more or less aggressive watering of the
foundation making cosmetic repairs and/or changes to the house and,
if appropriate, doing nothing.
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| Why the Engineering Approach is a More
Comprehensive
Approach: According to the US Army Corps of Engineers
publication Foundations in Expansive Soils, the fact that a
foundation is not performing "adequately" does not mean
that foundation repair is either necessary or desirable. Nor
does it mean that foundation repair will actually improve the
performance of the foundation. An engineer has both the
training and duty to exercise his engineering and analytical
judgment in judging both the adequacy of the performance of the
foundation and in reporting what options are applicable for
improving inadequate foundation performance. The real estate
inspection approach frequently results in a repair recommendation that is both
unnecessary and counterproductive. Many real estate inspectors
know this. They usually follow the rules by reporting a house
that shows signs of damage due to foundation movement as in need of
foundation repair but then also recommend a second opinion from a
structural engineer.
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Tip #6: Consider obtaining a
second opinion from an engineer: If your house foundation has been
underpinned in the past or if there are visible signs of damage or distortion
due to foundation movement the buyer's real estate inspector is likely to report
the foundation as in need of repair. Before you decide to have a
foundation repair contractor prepare a quote, you would be well served to retain
an engineer and get an engineering evaluation of the performance of the
foundation that addresses two key questions:
| Is foundation underpinning structurally
necessary? Very few Greater Houston Area houses are
so damaged by foundation movement that foundation repair is
structurally necessary.
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| If foundation underpinning is not
structurally necessary, would foundation underpinning make a
significant difference in the performance of the foundation. If
a house shows minor to moderate cosmetic damage with some minor door
problems, underpinning is likely to make only minor improvements to
the future performance of the foundation. Improving the
drainage, landscape changes and more consistent irrigation practices
may be just as effective at significantly less risk.
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Tip #7: Do not rely on a
foundation contractor repair warranty:
A foundation repair
warranty is no better than the company that stands behind it. This
industry is littered with repair warranty programs and companies that have gone
bankrupt leaving homeowners with little more than pieces of paper that say
Lifetime Warranty, disconnected phone numbers and addresses where there is
nothing but an empty lot.
The typical foundation repair warranty requires only that the
foundation repair contractor make adjustments to the piles or piers during the
life of the warranty if certain conditions are met. The foundation
contractor is not liable for any damage that may result from such
adjustments. The cost of the adjustments may be borne by the contractor or
may cost the owner an amount stipulated in the foundation repair warranty.
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Tip #8: Do not rely on a new home
foundation warranty:
One reason some home sellers may feel comfortable when the are selling a house that shows signs
of damage due to foundation movement is that they believe that the 3rd party 10-year foundation
warranty will make the buyer feel comfortable and take care of any problems that
might exist relative to the foundation. Other than making sellers and
buyers feel better, 3rd party foundation warranties are not worth very
much. There are two aspects of these warranties that you should understand.
| These warranties require that there be damage to a listed
structural member: The large majority of houses that experience
foundation problems will not show damage to a listed structural
member. The damage is almost always restricted to brittle wall
coverings such as drywall (sheetrock), brick veneer and
stucco. These coverings are not listed structural members.
Regardless of how severely damaged wall coverings are, such damage
is not covered by the 10-year foundation warranty.
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| The damage to a listed structural member must render the house
unlivable or unsafe. This is even less likely.
In practice, virtually the only way this can happen is for a door
that is a primary or secondary fire escape door to stick or bind so
that small child may not be able to open the door. But, even
if this happens, it can almost always be corrected without
underpinning the foundation. |
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The bottom line is this : The typical new home foundation warranty
is akin to an insurance policy protecting you from the theft of an in-ground
concrete swimming pool. It provides protection only against an extremely
unlikely event.
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Tip #9: Be
able to recognize foundation repair contractor scare tactics: It
has been my experience that some (but certainly not all) foundation repair
contractors are not above using unethical scare tactics to sell foundation
repair work. The most common and
egregious tactics are listed below:
| The finish floor (or foundation surface)
exceeds the allowable slope: The scam here is that there is no “allowable
slope”. Construction tolerances
published by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) allow for a new slab to have
a slope as high as 1.25 inches over 10-feet.
But neither the ACI or any code authority publishes a maximum allowable
slope tolerance for existing slab-on-ground foundations.
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| The finish floor (or foundation surface)
exceeds the allowable levelness criterion: Foundation repair contractors will sometimes tell a homeowner that
his foundation is excessively out of level.
This is misleading at best and a scam at worst.
There is no code requirement that stipulates how level a slab-on-ground
foundation should be. The levelness
of the foundation surface is an aesthetic issue, not a code issue.
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| The roof rafters are being pulled apart: When
there are gaps between the roof rafters and the ridge beam, the
typical cause is sloppy framing, not foundation movement. One
way to check to see if foundation movement is a possible cause of
such gaps is to test plumb of the of wall the rafter frame
into. If the wall is reasonably plumb, foundation movement is
not likely to be pulling the roof rafters apart.
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| Snakes and other vermin can enter the
house.: I have been told stories of foundation repair
contractors telling homeowners that if they do not underpin their foundation
snakes and other vermin can enter the house.
This is an obvious scare tactic. The
truth is that vermin can enter any house. No
one likes to hear that, but it is true. Underpinning
the foundation is not going to change that fact.
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| If you do not underpin the foundation
perimeter now, you will have to underpin the interior later: This is almost laughable. Underpinning
the perimeter of a foundation can result in the normally dormant area of the
foundation becoming unstable. The
fact is that foundation repair is rarely an emergency situation.
Taking your time to make a well-considered decision is not likely to
result in having to do even more repair work in the future.
Do not let a repair contractor hurry your decision.
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| If you do not underpin the foundation you
cannot sell the house: I will admit that if a house shows signs of
significant foundation movement, it may be easier to sell the house if it has
been underpinned, especially if the repair work comes with a Lifetime warranty.
But it is also true that underpinning the foundation may also make the
house more difficult to sell. There
is no clearer proof that a foundation has performed inadequately in the past
than the fact that the owner spent several thousand dollars to try to make it
perform better.
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| You must repair the foundation now or face
bigger problems later: In most cases, there is no reason to believe that you
will face even more repairs in the future if you do not repair the foundation
now. I cannot stress enough that
foundation underpinning is rarely an emergency situation.
It is almost always prudent to take your time and make a decision only
after you are satisfied you have enough information.
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Tip #10: Keep things in
perspective:
This is a very important point. For the
average person, there are many aspects of a house that are more important than
the foundation. Examples are the schools that serve the area where the
house is located, the number of bath rooms and bedrooms, the amount of traffic
on the street, the proximity of schools, churches, employment and
shopping. All most people want is for the foundation be adequate.
Given the soil conditions that exist in the Greater Houston Area and the almost
universal use of non-structural house foundations that distort as the soil
distorts, it is virtually inevitable that most resale houses will show some
signs of damage due to foundation movement. Your buyer will have to decide how much
damage they are willing to tolerate and whether your home meets their
needs and desires. In our experience, there is a buyer for every house at
the right price.
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