Share your home buying horror stories!

[Wasp]

This moving in day horror happened to my best friend whom I helped move. After a rather nasty divorce my friend was finally getting her life together and moving forward. A huge part of her "new" life was her purchase of a really nice 3 bedroom home. Included in the sale was all window covers, kitchen appliances (fridge,stove,d/w) and washer/dryer. It was written into the sales contract pretty much the way I just wrote it. Moving in day arrives and upon arrival to the new house she invites us all in prior to unloading the trucks to check out her new digs. Everything was fine until she walked into the kitchen. The appliances she thought she was getting with the house were no where to be seen, instead the former owner had replaced all the appliances with second hand shop 20 year old miss matched appliances. The fridge was replaced with a bar sized fridge (white) the stove was a nice olive green 20 yr old stove, and the dishwasher replaced a really old almond coloured dishwasher which the inside had a huge amount of rust stains plus wasn't even hooked up. The full sized washer/dryer had also been replaced with apartment sized washer/dryer stack. Needless to say she was completely distraught and after many frantic phone calls the end result was she had no legal recourse because the sales contract did not contain any make/model or serial numbers of the original appliances. It only stated that included in the sale was fridge/stove/d/w and washer/dryer which was all there but total junk. Lesson learned!, need to be very specific about including details in a sales contract.

[Helene2013]

This moving in day horror happened to my best friend whom I helped move. After a rather nasty divorce my friend was finally getting her life together and moving forward. A huge part of her "new" life was her purchase of a really nice 3 bedroom home. Included in the sale was all window covers, kitchen appliances (fridge,stove,d/w) and washer/dryer. It was written into the sales contract pretty much the way I just wrote it. Moving in day arrives and upon arrival to the new house she invites us all in prior to unloading the trucks to check out her new digs. Everything was fine until she walked into the kitchen. The appliances she thought she was getting with the house were no where to be seen, instead the former owner had replaced all the appliances with second hand shop 20 year old miss matched appliances. The fridge was replaced with a bar sized fridge (white) the stove was a nice olive green 20 yr old stove, and the dishwasher replaced a really old almond coloured dishwasher which the inside had a huge amount of rust stains plus wasn't even hooked up. The full sized washer/dryer had also been replaced with apartment sized washer/dryer stack. Needless to say she was completely distraught and after many frantic phone calls the end result was she had no legal recourse because the sales contract did not contain any make/model or serial numbers of the original appliances. It only stated that included in the sale was fridge/stove/d/w and washer/dryer which was all there but total junk. Lesson learned!, need to be very specific about including details in a sales contract.

OMG. I never thought people would do such a nasty thing..I'll remember that one for sure if I ever get another home (or something that says : include such and such item!)

I remember when we purchased our 2nd home, we thought the alarm system was functioning. NOT! So we had to have it changed and it did end up costing lots of $

So when we moved into our current home, we had an architect do the inspection and he tested EVERYTHING that was checkable! Even run the water in the tub to check if the jets were working. Owners were going nuts. haha It was a $600 well spent! I would not be caught off guard again for some things...but never thought about people switching something when it was specified it would be included.