Hi. Hope someone can help me. (though I have a feeling things are pretty BAD here)

I bought my house a little over a year ago. The first winter the basement was relatively dry, though we did have some flooding due to a broken drainage pipe outside.

There was an addition put on the home in 1997 apparently. They called it a 'sunroom' in the permits. There was also a basement dug out. There was no heat vents run to the new addition at all. (live in northern Ontario, Canada). There is a gas fire place in the 'sunroom', so I guess that was what they were planning on heating that room. There was also what appeared to be a make shift 'vent' from the furnace directly under the thermostat for the fire place.

In the fall we discovered that this was not connected, and was actually pumping hot air into the work shop (new basement area) all last winter. We had crazy heat bills, so we obviously reconnected the line.

Shortly after the new part of the basement began to flood. As we began to look harder it was obvious that there had been LOTS of patching done on the floor, and there was drywall in certain places but not others. We had thought he just ran out or was too cheap. HA.

It has been flooding continuously since beginning of Dec 2007. We have to shop vac out the water many times a day.

I have a feeling that due to the 'sun room' designation of the room that they may not have put any drainage in the new addition. And removing the warm air allowed things to get cold enough to mess any patch jobs the former owner had.


Oh, and this mould was hidden. I found it. *sigh*

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c175/av8rix77/basement047.jpg

And here you can see where there was patching on the floor.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c175/av8rix77/basement034.jpg

So my question is, do I have a chance going after the previous owner for obviously lying in his sellers declaration? And what about the home inspector who found nothing majorly wrong with the basement?

I am very fearful at how much this will cost to fix.

You would have a better case against the home inspector. I'm not sure the seller actually lied or that you can prove they did. But if there were issues that the inspector didn't catch, you might have a case against them. Consult an attorney.

Thanks. Though I think I am then screwed, as you can only take the home inspector to court within a year. And this happened just after that time limit.

And I am 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999% SURE they did LIE. There are so many other things going wrong... it's ridiculous.

Now to prove it. *sigh*

Hi. Hope someone can help me. (though I have a feeling things are pretty BAD here)

I bought my house a little over a year ago. The first winter the basement was relatively dry, though we did have some flooding due to a broken drainage pipe outside.

There was an addition put on the home in 1997 apparently. They called it a 'sunroom' in the permits. There was also a basement dug out. There was no heat vents run to the new addition at all. (live in northern Ontario, Canada). There is a gas fire place in the 'sunroom', so I guess that was what they were planning on heating that room. There was also what appeared to be a make shift 'vent' from the furnace directly under the thermostat for the fire place.

In the fall we discovered that this was not connected, and was actually pumping hot air into the work shop (new basement area) all last winter. We had crazy heat bills, so we obviously reconnected the line.

Shortly after the new part of the basement began to flood. As we began to look harder it was obvious that there had been LOTS of patching done on the floor, and there was drywall in certain places but not others. We had thought he just ran out or was too cheap. HA.

It has been flooding continuously since beginning of Dec 2007. We have to shop vac out the water many times a day.

I have a feeling that due to the 'sun room' designation of the room that they may not have put any drainage in the new addition. And removing the warm air allowed things to get cold enough to mess any patch jobs the former owner had.


Oh, and this mould was hidden. I found it. *sigh*

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c175/av8rix77/basement047.jpg

And here you can see where there was patching on the floor.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c175/av8rix77/basement034.jpg

So my question is, do I have a chance going after the previous owner for obviously lying in his sellers declaration? And what about the home inspector who found nothing majorly wrong with the basement?

I am very fearful at how much this will cost to fix.
I would say that after a year attempting to claim against anyone is going to be a problem -

Yes, there will be little you can do, first in your own report there was no or not much issue during the first year, so the defense can be easily this is merely a problem that developed. Perhaps dranage lines needed to be redid or other issues.

Once you agree and accept a home you accept it either after inspection or as is.

Also depending on what the inspector saw or could see, since the problem did not show up for a year, most likely there was nothing to see on standard inspections, if there was no mold, or signs of water damage and more ( things you should have been able to see at the time of purchase)

So I really don't see any case *** using US law, and of course Canadian law can differ.