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Comment by randomdrake | Hacker News Reader

While this is an absolutely heart breaking and terrible story, there is a part of this that makes me cringe:

Freddie Mac won't take any responsibility for misleading us about the safety of our home, and attorneys just tell us that we should've read the fine print.

Buying a home, or making any significant purchase is always going to come with "fine print." Make sure you read your contracts, always. If you are buying a home that seems to good to be true, it probably is and you should hire a reputable inspector to find out why. If you don't feel you're up to the task, hire someone to check the fine print for you. I'd be interested to know what fine print they ignored before deciding to make their decision.

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This petition offends me because it omits some important facts, namely the couple bought a foreclosure...

See http://www.heraldandnews.com/members/news/frontpage/article_...

I helped a friend through a foreclosure recently, and throughout the process you sign and are told MULTIPLE times that the house is "as-is." These people should have inspected. You get what you pay for, and I'm sorry they are out 36k, but this is no different than buying a new ferrari from a used car dealer for 10k and asking ferrari to send you a new engine.

From the article: "They found a couple of smashed windows, and knew they’d have to put some work into it, he said. A handout from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency informed them they were responsible for detecting asbestos, lead paint or other common health hazards associated with older homes."

Did these people even view the house before they bought it?

This petition offended me long before that. It was today's lucky SPAM email from change.org. Sheesh... you sign one petition with them... and SPAM!

Also interesting from the article and not in the petition:

>Sold for a song at $36,000, the two-bedroom, single-story home is about the only rough spot on a street of clean and tidy homes.

[...]

>The Hankins now will be stuck with the cost of remediation, which one contractor said costs $5,000 to $8,000 or more

Seems to me that $41,000-43,000 is still a pretty good price for a two-bedroom home, about $10k down from the average in the area according to Trulia.

So the full story is that they explicitly bought a house as-is, found an $8000 problem with it, and decided to start a petition and move out.

I'd agree that there should be a better database of convicted meth distributors/manufacturers and the homes they used for their operations, but then why not push for that kind of regulation at the state level rather than within one company? Especially if the "most important" part of your petition is to make sure "that this doesn't happen to one more family".

I'm gonna guess that the fine print was more along the lines of "we're not responsible for what happened before this" than "we're not responsible for leftover meth byproducts."

Sure, you could say that these people should hire someone to test for chemicals in the air, but how wealthy do you expect people who purchase a home that used to be a meth lab?

I'm just saying that it's not quite so simple as reading the fine print.

Actually, the fine print probably just said "due diligence" is the buyer's responsibility and the property doesn't come with a seller's disclosure.

[edit] Which by the way, is all the seller should have to say in this situation. See my full opinion below.

And even if it didn't, buyers should always get a home inspected before finalizing.

I do feel terrible for what this family is going through. I hope people take their story as a warning to perform due diligence themselves.

I've hired two home inspectors in my lifetime, and none of them even suggested they were even capable of testing for meth byproducts. Is this really a service anyone sells?

> the property doesn't come with a seller's disclosure.

Which is probably a standard clause for a foreclosure? If he bought it from a bank, it's almost certainly a foreclosure.

Foreclosures can be a great deal, they can also turn out to be a horrible investment.

He should have hired an inspector. He should have done it even if it wasn't a foreclosure. An inspector should be somebody you find. Not your lawyer, not your real-estate agent. You. They're the only person in the process looking after your interests. They inspect many homes and know exactly what to look for. You don't.

At the end of the day, this is 100% his fault, but what's done is done.

I would pressure the bank's real-estate agent. They really don't want to be known for selling meth labs ... and they probably have contacts on the inside.

They might arrange for the bank to pay for the necessary clean-up, if such a thing is even possible.

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