CAG home owner topic. Buying or selling a home? Have a maintance issue? Help is here!

[quote name='perdition(troy']you don't need a permit for something like that...just do it. if somewhere down the road someone complains about it and you get a letter in the mail to fix it, fix it then.[/QUOTE]

Which could be a major problem if say, you build a fence too high and are forced to remove the whole thing or take a chain saw to the top of it.

Instead, just read what your municipal code says. It'll say whether you need a permit or not, and it'll say what types of fences require permits and which don't, and what the specifications of said fences should be.

I know some municipalities allow 6 foot high fences made of wood or vinyl without a permit. Otherwise you need a permit and will have to meet other specifications. But it varies by every city, so just check your city's website or go down to city hall.

And if you need a permit but aren't going to pull one for whatever reason, just build it or have it built to code and hope that if you get caught later they can just inspect it, approve it (assuming the code specifications are still the same), and fine you rather than make you tear the whole thing down to rebuild it to code with a permit.
 
[quote name='keithp']So no fertilizer or seed starter at all?[/QUOTE]

If you feel really motivated aerate and de-thatch, I did a bunch of that this year and it made a huge improvement. Fertilizer tends to help the grass you already have more than new growth.
 
[quote name='TooMuchCoolness']When I flush the toilet, it just gurgles sometimes. What should I do? Usually happens after I take my weekly dump...[/QUOTE]

check the water level in the tank it may be that the tank isn't being filled enough, takes to long to fill after use or is leaking into the basin and not refilling itself, also check that the flapper is working correctly, gurgling is due to insufficient water being dumped into the basin to flush the system.
 
tl;dr part:

An older family member has an entry door to the garage from her backyard. The door must be almost 40 years old at this point. Its never been kept up and is probably extra worn because a previous owner cut a hole for a doggy door but then sealed it up (because no doggy door was ever cut into the door from the inside of the house to the garage - how was the dog ever supposed to get out?). The wood is peeling off the door and stuff like that.

Eventually the whole house is going to be gutted and renovated, but for now that door really needs replacing before one of the asshole neighbors gets a bug up his ass about it and calls city code enforcement (home is situated on a hill, neighbors behind the backyard actually look down into the backyard and can see everything - great for privacy!).

I've never replaced any doors before. Is it a complicated process? Or is it something I could do in a couple of hours after the new door is painted and whatnot?
 
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[quote name='kodave']I've never replaced any doors before. Is it a complicated process? Or is it something I could do in a couple of hours after the new door is painted and whatnot?[/QUOTE]

I just replaced 15 doors including 3 exterior doors. You need a level, shims, and nails/screws. Its a time consuming task in the sense that you need to ensure equal spacing all around the door. Also make sure that you are buying an exterior door that has a plate at the bottom with weatherstripping. The last thing you want is water getting in under the door. Youll also need to put trim. Outside, you will need to caulk the trim to prevent water coming in. For your first time out, expect to use the entire day to do this.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Javery, this might be a good question for you: Is a quitclaim deed the common type of deed used in a residential real estate transaction? I know the textbook definition from when I studied for the CPA exam, but obviously textbook definitions aren't always applicable to real life. But my husband reviewed the P&S for the house and he's going apeshit over this after looking it up on wikipedia. Wikipedia claims that a quitclaim deed is hardly ever used in a non-familial real estate transaction, whereas googling information on deeds in MA says it's the most common type of deed used when buying real estate in the state. Obviously, we have a lawyer who reviewed the document. He didn't say anything about it. Still thought I would ask the Internet lawyers on here though. ;)[/QUOTE]

I have no idea. I took Property 10 years ago already!
 
I told my wife I knew someone that was buying a house that came with a quitclaim deed and she shit bricks. She went on and on all morning about it. I told her to write it down when she gets a chance. I'll get it posted here this weekend hopefully.

Disclaimer: She is not a real estate lawyer.
 
LOL so great. I'd love to hear what she said.

The closing is the 11th. Last minute bullshit going on with the husband and his employer. I told him to check his schedule so I could know when he'd be available to do the closing. Apparently checking his work schedule does not involve talking with your boss about it. So when he told the boss today, the boss apparently shit bricks. Well too fucking bad, we can't close earlier because everyone already is preparing shit for that day, and the day before is a federal holiday, and we can't close after because that would involve extra paperwork since the interest rate lock ends that day. And yet my husband is still being a fucking pussy about it. I told him he needs at least the morning off, no negotiation. On the way home he tells me he got 10-12 off and I said, the fuck, the walkthrough is at 9:30 AM and I really doubt you could get to the deed place in a half hour from your work anyway. I layed into him, probably too much, but I was royally pissed because he's mostly taken a hands off approach to everything and has had me do all of the scheduling and making sure shit gets done. He is now in the bedroom sulking. I don't have much sympathy for him at this point.

/rant
 
More liek not funny.

He claimed his boss let him have the whole morning off but that "he better be back by the afternoon." I will beat the shit out of his puny ass Japanese boss if he gives us any more grief. I think the company can deal with someone not answering customer tech phone calls for a few hours.
 
So here it is in unadulterated lawyer speak. I don't dare edit the woman.
There are three main types of deeds: (1) general warranty (2) special warranty (3) quitclaim. The difference between the three types is the amount of protection afforded to the buyer, or in other words, the level of assurance the seller is willing to make.

A general warranty deed promises that (a) the seller did not do anything during his or her ownership of the property to cloud the title (e.g., sell it in full or in part to someone else, encumber the property with an undisclosed mortgage, etc.) and (b) the seller promises that no one in the previous chain of title did anything to cloud the title either (i.e., the seller did a thorough search of the title records and is willing to warrant that the title is good). If you get a general warranty deed, the seller is on the hook for any damages that might be caused by a later title dispute (e.g., someone tries to claim the land, a bank tries to foreclose, etc.).

A special warranty deed promises only (a) from above. So the seller is willing to promise that the seller did not cloud the title, but is not willing to warrant that no one in the previous chain of title engaged in any shenanigans with regard to the property. From what I understand, this type of title is common on the east coast, where a chain of title to a particular property may go back hundreds and hundreds of years, and no one is willing to warrant that title is good back to the colonies. This provides less protection but is apparently the norm in some states.

A quitclaim deed does not promise ANYTHING. It merely says: "Whatever I own, I am selling to you." It does NOT warrant that there is no cloud on title. It does NOT warrant that the seller even OWNS the property at all. All is does is convey whatever interest the seller does have to the buyer. It may be 100% ownership free and clear, it may be nothing at all. Why would anyone ever accept one of these? Here is an example. Grandpappy dies and leaves his swamp in the Florida Everglades to his 16 children in equal parts. One or two of the 16 children lives on the land for a while, some die and leave their share to their kids. After a couple of generations, no one knows who the hell owns what and in what percentage. Grandpappy's great-granddaughter needs some money. So she says to her brothers: "Buy whatever share I own of the property (who knows what, but it's something) for $1000." A quitclaim deed would be the only way to convey her share without sorting out the whole mess.

I am not saying there is never a good reason to accept a quitclaim deed. But I would make three suggestions: (1) find out why the hell the seller isn't willing to sign a special warranty deed (at least) (2) engage a reputable title company to scour the title records and find out what is going on and (3) demand a drastic price reduction for your willingness to accept a quitclaim deed.
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='keithp']Isn't that what Title Insurance is for though?[/QUOTE]
Sure. I think in human being speak, my wife was saying be damn sure the title co. is good. The difference between a quitclaim and a special warranty is the ability to say "I didn't screw around with the title". If they can't even say that, you better have your ducks in a row because the liability is potentially horrendous.
 
Can't you and your husband meet with the realtor prior to the closing date and fill out paperwork for a pre-closing. They go and represent you at closing and you dont need to be there? My wife and I are doing that mid-november.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']last house I closed on took under 30 minutes. No reason to be worried about having enough time imo.[/QUOTE]

Is there a lot of shit to read though? My husband insists on going through everything and asking questions. Which is a good thing, but it might take longer than most people.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Is there a lot of shit to read though? My husband insists on going through everything and asking questions. Which is a good thing, but it might take longer than most people.[/QUOTE]

In my case, the lawyer and us had worked out everything beforehand so we basically just had to sign. If he could read and wanted to read the legalese it would probably take hours.
 
oh jeez, he's going to be there forever. I had two-three meetings beforehand (at my convenience) to go over everything so that closing day was just wham bam thank you maam.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']oh jeez, he's going to be there forever. I had two-three meetings beforehand (at my convenience) to go over everything so that closing day was just wham bam thank you maam.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I got a copy of nearly everything before hand so I had to read very little at signing.
 
Same here. Closing should be (relatively) painless.

Our architect has the final plans ready for submission to the town variance/zoning committee. My wife is picking them up tonight - I'm psyched but a little nervous as this inches closer to reality and me cutting gigantic checks. The plan is to get in front of the committee in December or January, then bid it out and break ground after April 15 (when tax season is over). One small wrinkle - my wife is pregnant and would be due in mid-May which might pose some logistical problems but whatever.
 
I ended up inviting the closer lady to my house warming party about two weeks after I bought the place. After a few too many glasses of bubbly we ended up breaking in one of the basement bedrooms.

/csb

Closing on the house is the least stressful part of the whole ordeal to be honest.
 
Just closed yesterday. Took about 45 minutes, even with the added layer of VA paperwork and my wife going over it like a lawyer.

Today the contractors showed up to rip out the pool and to rip out a wall. We don't get to move in for two more weeks.
 
[quote name='nasum']I ended up inviting the closer lady to my house warming party about two weeks after I bought the place. After a few too many glasses of bubbly we ended up breaking in one of the basement bedrooms.

/csb

Closing on the house is the least stressful part of the whole ordeal to be honest.[/QUOTE]

PM a pic of her from her realtor website. I have an unattractive agent, I think I am going to have to let her go.
 
[quote name='Javery']Our architect has the final plans ready for submission to the town variance/zoning committee. My wife is picking them up tonight - I'm psyched but a little nervous as this inches closer to reality and me cutting gigantic checks. The plan is to get in front of the committee in December or January, then bid it out and break ground after April 15 (when tax season is over). One small wrinkle - my wife is pregnant and would be due in mid-May which might pose some logistical problems but whatever.[/QUOTE]

Here we go! I'm drooling over all of the basement space I'll have for my arcade machines and movie theater set up. :drool::drool::drool:

basementplan.jpg
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']that looks awesome....how long will it take?[/QUOTE]

A while. We are planning to go before the zoning board for the variance in December or January. There is a strong likelihood that they will approve the plans as drawn which is part of the reason why we hired an architect in the first place. Once that happens we can start bidding out the job but we probably won't break ground until the Spring.

The job itself is 3-4 months according to the contractors we have talked to. The basement will be unfinished to start - I'll do that myself over the following months once the addition construction is complete. I'm thinking best-case scenario is that the addition is finished by the end of next summer with my basement/man cave to be ready for opening day of the 2013 NFL season.

I am super-psyched though! It is going to almost double the size of the house and if you include the eventual finished basement it will be way more than double the living space (the current basement has 6' ceilings with pipes and ducts hanging down from there and is completely unfinished and unusable).
 
Ugh, nothing ever seems to go right for us in this process.

The mortgage company isn't going to have the documents ready today. Due to the holiday weekend, that means they probably won't have them until the actual closing date, at best. This really pisses me off considering they knew well in advance what the closing date was. My husband had a hard enough time as it is getting the morning of the 11th off, and it'd be the same deal for the rest of the week. What a clusterfuck. So they expect me to go to the bank, get the check, and read everything prior to doing the walkthrough at 9:30? What the fuck? The mortgage guy said he would be willing to take care of everything to move it to a later date in the week, but that was not what was agreed, and for good reason.
 
[quote name='Javery']A while. We are planning to go before the zoning board for the variance in December or January. There is a strong likelihood that they will approve the plans as drawn which is part of the reason why we hired an architect in the first place. Once that happens we can start bidding out the job but we probably won't break ground until the Spring.

The job itself is 3-4 months according to the contractors we have talked to. The basement will be unfinished to start - I'll do that myself over the following months once the addition construction is complete. I'm thinking best-case scenario is that the addition is finished by the end of next summer with my basement/man cave to be ready for opening day of the 2013 NFL season.

I am super-psyched though! It is going to almost double the size of the house and if you include the eventual finished basement it will be way more than double the living space (the current basement has 6' ceilings with pipes and ducts hanging down from there and is completely unfinished and unusable).[/QUOTE]

That's really exciting stuff - more space is nice once you start reproducing!

We haven't done much around the house. We have added a fire pit in the back yard and it was a big hit with our little mini-party we had last weekend. We are going to do some trimming on the azaleas and finishing painting the house (yes we have only painted the front of our house as ghetto as it sounds we just haven't had time to finish) within the next few weeks. Next up on the big spender list is new windows all around - hope that happens within the next year!
 
Does anyone else here have baseboard heating? I have an ancient boiler that needs some maintenance before winter and I am looking for some tips.
 
Ok folks, we should be closing tonight unless the bank fucks up more. We did the walkthrough this morning and noticed that the kitchen and bathrooms aren't as clean as we'd like and the floors (all hardwood) need a good sweeping/cleaning. They aren't fucking DISGUSTING like, say, my parents' old house before they moved, but they need a cleaning prior to moving in all of our shit (and cleaning is much easier in an empty place anyway). So anyone have any good kitchen, bathroom, and hardwood floor cleaning tips and products they can recommend? We've always had carpet and tile in our apartments so we are totally new to the hardwood floor thing. Shit doesn't have to be gleaming and shiny but we do want them to be clean.
 
scrubby bubbles is a simple way to clean any grime off the bathroom floor.

We have hardwood floors throughout the house, we use microfiber mop looking thingy. We use Bona X hardwood floor cleaner or murphys oil soap. We never dump water on the floor, we usually use a spray bottle. Floors always look great after we clean them (imo).
 
Just finished moving into our place. Nice, but not in the city :(. Anyways its a nice home. Put in Hardwood Laminate in two rooms. Tried going to the Empire special (2 rooms rest of the house free deal), but couldn't afford the rest of the labor. The materials are free, the labor is about $1k per room is seems. Either way,I'd go with them again, friendly and quick service.
 
Thinking about finishing basement. From rough measurements, i think the finished area will be about 700sqft. Going to leave about 350 unfinished for storage.
Friend who did his basement offered to work on mine - need to find out how much the materials would run me before deciding on that. I know places like The Basement Store advertise 800sq ft for $9999.
 
[quote name='Pookymeister']Thinking about finishing basement. From rough measurements, i think the finished area will be about 700sqft. Going to leave about 350 unfinished for storage.
Friend who did his basement offered to work on mine - need to find out how much the materials would run me before deciding on that. I know places like The Basement Store advertise 800sq ft for $9999.[/QUOTE]

Take lots of pictures! What are you planning? Projector? Bar? Games? Theater seats?
 
More info on the kitchen stuff that needs to be cleaned as requested by my husband: there's a lot of greasy/oily/sticky residue left behind, obviously from cooking. Any ideas on how to get that shit out? That'll probably be the worst of the cleaning.

Also, we just finished closing about an hour ago. Took about an hour since I was able to read the docs ahead of time (like an hour before we left for the close, lol). Finally done with that shit!
 
Congrats DoK! Welcome to the never-ending battle of owning a home. You will level up over time but it is a grind.

If I were you I'd pay the $150 or whatever and just have a professional come in and clean the entire house or at least the kitchen. It's so worth it. We have a service come in every other week and clean the entire house. It only costs $75 and I swear I'd give up just about every luxury before letting that one go. It sounds crazy when I say it because I'm usually so cheap but I'd probably pay more than double to keep it - it's that awesome.
 
[quote name='Javery']Take lots of pictures! What are you planning? Projector? Bar? Games? Theater seats?[/QUOTE]

Well, it's definitely going to be a man-cave for games/movies/etc. Probably going to move my 60in TV that's in the current man-cave/bedroom, but could see me getting a projector setup later.
 
[quote name='Javery']Congrats DoK! Welcome to the never-ending battle of owning a home. You will level up over time but it is a grind.

If I were you I'd pay the $150 or whatever and just have a professional come in and clean the entire house or at least the kitchen. It's so worth it. We have a service come in every other week and clean the entire house. It only costs $75 and I swear I'd give up just about every luxury before letting that one go. It sounds crazy when I say it because I'm usually so cheap but I'd probably pay more than double to keep it - it's that awesome.[/QUOTE]

I suggested this to my husband and he said why would he pay people money when he could do a more thorough job? Oh well.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']I suggested this to my husband and he said why would he pay people money when he could do a more thorough job? Oh well.[/QUOTE]

You won't do a more thorough job - the first time these people come to your house they will do a "deep clean" because they want to get your recurring business. Also, time = money and there are better ways to spend your free time than cleaning especially when you have so much other house nonsense to take care of.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']I personally enjoy cleaning my home. I take pride in it when I'm finished, I'm assuming DoK's husband feels the same way.[/QUOTE]

Ugh. Not me - I take pride in my yardwork/landscaping but not scrubbing the toilets!
 
[quote name='Javery']Ugh. Not me - I take pride in my yardwork/landscaping but not scrubbing the toilets![/QUOTE]

See, we fucking HATE yardwork, which is why we bought a house with no lawn (I think I've said this about 20 times now). We don't really like cleaning either, but like (troy said, we do have some pride and sense of accomplishment when the cleaning is done.

Good point on them doing a deep cleaning the first time though. Honestly, we probably wouldn't be repeat business, but I think it might be worth the money considering all the house shit going on, like you said. I just need to convince the hubby.
 
Guys, need some advice here. We need a new dishwasher for the house, which we were well informed of prior to buying. Anyone know any good free sites for reviews, or can recommend a brand or specific model? We just want a basic one, no fancy ass features. Also, we thinking of buying at Lowe's. Good/bad idea? Any better stores to buy from? We plan on researching this week and then buying next Saturday. Also, do WE (as in the buyers) have to be there at delivery or can my aunt and uncle be there instead? They are both retired and we both work.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Guys, need some advice here. We need a new dishwasher for the house, which we were well informed of prior to buying. Anyone know any good free sites for reviews, or can recommend a brand or specific model? We just want a basic one, no fancy ass features. Also, we thinking of buying at Lowe's. Good/bad idea? Any better stores to buy from? We plan on researching this week and then buying next Saturday. Also, do WE (as in the buyers) have to be there at delivery or can my aunt and uncle be there instead? They are both retired and we both work.[/QUOTE]

I've never looked at Lowes, but Home Depot has always appeared extremely over priced when buying appliances. The best price I was able to get on a modest Whirlpool bundle of appliances was at Best Buy of all places. But for just one single appliance, I'm not sure. Again, all I can say about Home Depot is overpriced. Same with the Sears Outlet store by me. Some of the low end models there which may have some kind of flaw were way more expensive than similar new models from other stores. Outlet ≠ Savings.

I assume whether you have to be there at delivery is up to to the store's delivery policies. Probably not would be my best guess assuming everything goes perfectly.

But if they damage something, like the front of the dishwasher, they may ask whoever is there to sign off on accepting the damage but I don't know if that would actually fly in binding you to accepting that damaged item. If there is some problem with the connections under your sink to the dishwasher, your aunt and uncle may have to sign off on approving them to just leaving the dishwasher there until you repair the connections and have it hooked up yourself.
 
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