HELP! Mold in bathroom walls in newly purchased home.?

Question

i bought a house six months ago. Just found out there is mold in the bathroom walls. Home warranty said they wont cover. Home isurance said they wont cover. Is there any legal recourse I would have?????

Answer 1

Your contractor should by responsible for up to 10 years. you must get the leak fixed immediately and all the dry wall must be replaced.

Answer 2

Don't know about the legal stuff.

As to what to do about the problem, check out the remarkable research on toxic mold removal done by environmental expert Dr Ed Close. Simply diffusing Thieves essential oil regularly will likely result in an environment very hostile to mold.

http://www.secretofthieves.com/mold.cfm

Of course, in this case, you want to fix the leak and clean up the mold.

Cost of the Thieves Household Cleaner, a diffuser and a couple bottles of the Thieves oil that Dr Close recommends to his remediation clients: about $250.

Answer 3

Who did the inspection for the title insurance and the lender?

Answer 4

You need to find out what is causing the mold problem. Most likely there is a water leak someplace that is causing moisture in the walls causing the mold. I would think that the home warranty would cover the water leak repair and therefore any other repairs related. I would contact the home warranty company to find out. Most home insurance policys covers broken pipes/water leaks. I would also inquire about that with your homeowners insurance company. I had a flood in my basement and they told me since it was due to rain water it wasn't covered, but it if a pipe had burst then it would have been covered.  You may even be able to go back to the old owner of the house. If there was a water leak problem that they didn't disclose to you, they could be responsible for the repair. You may have to take them to small claims court to pay for the repairs. Worth checking out.

Answer 5

Look through your documentation from when you bought the house for about a 10 to 12-page document called a Transfer Disclosure Statement. This is where the seller listed all of the things that were wrong with the house to the best of their knowledge.

If it's listed on there that there was a mold problem, there's not much you can do (you should have read the documentation before you signed it and addressed that issue then). But, if there are no mold problems listed on that document, contact the real estate agent who represented you in the transaction. He/she should be able to tell you how to proceed with a claim against the seller and the seller's agent for non-disclosure of the mold problem.

However, for you to proceed with such a complaint, you would have to prove that the seller had prior knowledge of the problem and willfully chose not to disclose it. Talk with your agent about how you would go about doing that.

Of course, it might be a problem that did, in fact, start after you bought the house. There might have been a source of moisture (leaking pipe or drain) that didn't start issuing moisture until after you bought the place. In this case, you are liable for the repairs.

In the future, unless the seller is willing to purchase the home warranty for you, don't bother getting it. They're pretty much useless. For example, let's say one of your pipes burst and completely flooded out a part of your house, requiring new drywall, carpeting, or whatever. The home warranty only covers the repairs to the pipe itself. It doesn't cover the water damage caused by the ruptured pipe.