Water Leak in B.C. House – Who’s At Fault?

Recently a news story aired on CBC talking about a situation where a new home owner was faced with at $50,000 repair bill for water damage after a leak occurred in the basement of his home.  He had recently purchased the home and the seller had stated that there were no known water issues.  However, it turns out that the previous owner did have a leak problem in the basement but had it repaired.

Now the law in B.C. states that if you’ve had a problem repaired, you don’t have a problem anymore and therefore don’t have to disclose it.  The logic here is that over the life of a house, lots of problems will occur and subsequently be repaired.  That’s just the normal flow of events.  Assuming that things have been repaired properly, it shouldn’t indicate that there are any current problems with the home and therefore, don’t need to be disclosed.

In this case, the buyer is upset because the leak occurred again and he’s stuck with the bill.  I’d be frustrated too.

However, who’s at fault here.    If we assume that the seller hired a qualified trades person to do the repair, he’d have every right to believe the problem had been fixed once and for all and therefore, didn’t need to disclose anything.   Ditto for the REALTOR® involved.  However, the CBC report makes it out to sound like the seller and REALTOR® are shady and tried to pull a fast one.  Well sure, that might be the case, but it’s not likely.

Maybe the law needs to change to require home owners to maintain a log of the history of all problems with a house (which of course would have to pass from owner to owner through the years).  We all know that’s not going to happen – and who would put any stock in it anyway.

No, the reality here is that sometimes these things happen.  Things break in houses and normally you can’t predict them.  That may sound harsh, but it’s the risk of home ownership.

Now enter Bob Aaron, a lawyer from Toronto who gives the advice that people should always have a home inspection done by an inspector who has infra-red technology since it can find some of these defects.  Good grief Bob.  Do you know how many inspectors have this technology?  Not many.  And it’s often prohibitively expensive.  I heard one report that a single picture from an infra-red camera was an additional $75.00 to the buyer.  And that assumes that they know in advance where to take the picture.  I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is useful advice.

So yes, get a home inspection so that you have a general understanding of the condition of the house.  And be aware that every – yes every house, has issues.  Dealing with those issues, and all the new ones that will crop up during your ownership of the property, is part of owning a house.  And when you fix the issues you find, make sure you fix them well because eventually you’re going to sell that house to someone else.

Steve