New house becomes 'disaster' for Ontario couple who skipped home inspection
An Ontario couple says they discovered a "disaster" soon after moving into their new house, which they bought without a home inspection: Mushrooms growing in the kitchen, shingle debris raining off the roof and a toilet sinking into rotting foundation.
Meaghan Darrach and her husband bought their house just north of Grafton, Ont., last August for just over $500,000 with no conditions.
“We were up against two other bids,” Darrach said. At the time, the market was “madness,” and she said they had already looked at about 20 other houses. This was the third they put an offer on.
“Everyone was bidding so far over [asking] and houses were staying on the market for two days. If you wanted it, you had to jump on it now,” she said.
After viewing their current house, that’s what they did.
The single-family home has four bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, an attached garage and a yard slotted on just under half an acre of land.
It was just what Darrach, 28, and her husband, 30, needed for their growing family of three with a baby on the way.
“We really wanted that specific house,” she said.
They knew it would “need some love,” since Darrach said it was built around 1987, but they didn’t anticipate the “construction zone” they would live in for over a year and counting.
First, it was the kitchen floor, which they ripped out after a dishwasher leak. Then, the drywall started splitting at the corners and the foundation began rotting. “That was the start of it,” she said.
Darrach said she has no idea how long it's going to take to fix the entire house or how much it is going to cost them.
But even so, she said they would “do it all again” for the price they paid.
Leigh Gate, president of the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors, said over the past year and a half, the strong competition among buyers in the real estate market has compelled many to take the same route as this Ontario couple.
“To make an offer more attractive, the buyer would leave out as many conditions as possible,” he said.
The cost of a home inspection varies across the province based on the location and size of the house, but Gate said it typically costs between $450 to $650.
“The number one goal is the buyers know what they are buying,” he said. As the housing market shows signs of cooling, Gate said, buyers are “very slowly” starting to gravitate back to home inspections.
As a Toronto real estate broker, Davelle Morrison said she always encourages clients to conduct home inspections before they make an offer, but the challenge can come after a couple of viewings.
“After they spend that $600 on a couple houses, they don't want to spend any more,” she said.
Even with a home inspection, she said many houses in the province were built more than 100 years ago and have histories that no one can uncover.
“I think the challenge is people are not buying a box of Lego with a set of instructions,” Morrison said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.