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Posted on 10/17/2011 12:55:28 PM PDT by illiac
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) - “The Greatest” says he bought a home in eastern Jefferson county that was anything but the greatest.
Thursday night, the realtor who sold Muhammad and Lonnie Ali the home says he is surprised to see this come about.
The home is an upscale property in Louisville's East End that the former heavyweight champion of the world bought to spend quality time during his retirement in his home town.
The house is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Ali, which claims the person who sold it to them should have known about severe problems with the home and disclosed them.
Ali and his wife Lonnie have sued P.R. Lancaster and his wife Beverly, the former owners.
The suit claims the couple failed to disclose major problems with the house, including roof leaks, chimney leaks, water intrusion, poor insulation, improper ventilation work and mold.
(Excerpt) Read more at whas11.com ...
didn’t even know he had a wife. much less a house in KY.
It’s up to the buyer to get a home inspection.
Most states require a building inspection be done by a qualified and licensed building inspector. Was this not done? Any buyer who signs the docs without having a professional they trust to do this is stupid and deserves what they get.
If the inspection was done, how could a qualified inspector miss such things as roof leaks, chimney leaks, water intrusion, poor insulation, improper ventilation work and mold? C'mon.
Here we go. KY taxpayers can buy him a new house.
It’s up to the buyer to get a HOLMES inspection.
My guess is that Mr. Clay never heard the term “Buyer Beware”.
Most anyone buying a home today pays a few hundred bucks to have a prospective home inspected before buying. I know I did when I bought mine and it didn’t cost near as much as Clay’s.
If you don’t know much about homes it is really dumb to accept a seller’s word for anything.
I guess we can assume that Muhammed Ali’s home is worth less than the mortgage he took on it, and he doesn’t have the money to meet the monthly payment.
Ever watch Holms on homes? The premise of the show is he comes to people’s homes that have been inspected and find humongous obvious problems. Fun watching him shake his head and wonder aloud how anyone could have botched thing up that bad.
That’s my guess too. The Champ is trying to get out from under the house payment. Two words for Mr. Ali: Home Inspection!!
Ali has taken too many knocks to the noggin. It’s buyer beware but also the buyer is given the opportunity to choose any inspector they want and have as many as they want within a certain time period. Usually 10 days from ratification of contract. Ali could’ve had a whole home inspection, a seperate roof inspection, chimney, mold, termite, lead based paint and a siding inspection if he wanted. Dumba%%!
Has Ali run out of money and needs some funds?
I'm sure this varies by state. In FL, the only state I'm really familiar with, the seller is required to disclose any such issues of which he is aware. Or he signs a paper saying he isn't aware of any such problems.
If he signs such a paper when it isn't true, it constitutes fraud.
I agree with everyone....shoulda had a home inspection...
Ali is a very sick man right now, it’s a sad story. Someone should have been looking out for him.
I had a home inspection done and it was thebest (and most educational) $200 I ever spent.
I went around with the guy and he taught me more in 2 hours than I ever learned before.
After 911 I would have thought that Ali would have gone back to his birth name of Cassius Clay. It sounds, you know, more American. But I guess he just likes the sound of it by now never minding what it stands for. What Clay needs these days is a Howard Cosell to “mentor” him.
A lot of building inspectors have a close business relationship with the real estate agent. They know that if they find a lot wrong with the house and the deal falls through, they won’t get any more work from that realtor. Hence, they decide not to see certain obvious flaws.
We had this situation once when we bought a house: the inspector thought the house passed with flying colors, but our smart lawyer went to the house on the night before closing, had a little look-around, and found the deck was about to fall down, the roof was rotten, etc. The inspector should have seen these really obvious things. (We were out of state and could not see them due to snow cover.)
So building inspections don’t fix everything. Many states now have laws that require full disclosure on the part of the owner and permit a buyer to come back and sue if there are major problems the seller must have known about. The realtor is not expected to have ESP and know stuff the seller didn’t tell him, of course.
What, Ali couldn’t afford a HOME INSPECTION? If a buyer-client of mine declines to have one, I have a waiver for them to sign stating that I recommended it and they declined!
I doubt that the lawsuit is going anywhere. The house was inspected prior to the sale in 2006. I would be surprised if the statute of limitations has not expired. Five years seems like a long time to bring a lawsuit about misrepresentations in a home sale.
Contrary to claims made by some posters, home sales are not buyer beware in most (all?) states. Sellers are required to disclose known defects. Of course proving seller knowledge of undisclosed defects can be difficult. Home inspections cannot find all defects especially in older homes.
On my current home (bought in 1997), the seller failed to disclose an assessment on the house. One month after the closing I was notified about the assessment. I filed a lawsuit against the prior owner. He apologized for not disclosing the assessment claiming that he had forgotten about it. We agreed to split the assessment. I had a document with his signature showing that he knew about the assessment at least when he signed the document.
Agreed. Some states have no requirement, but others require a disclosure form that requires the seller to report anything he knows that would detract from the value of the property.
For example, I bought a house where the owner shopped around for a septic system report. The first 3 said it needed a total replacement of the leach field. The fourth agreed to supply the report without even looking at the property.
When the leach field proved bad, I ran into the guys who had told the owner that nothing short of replacing the leach field would work. However, they also told me that they did not have time to spend in court. If forced to go, they would deny any knowledge of my septic system.
In the end, the owner agreed out of court to give $1000 towards the cost of the new leach field. I sued the company that provided the false report, but the small claims judge must have been the guy’s brother. I was one of 5 people suing the man that day in court. The guy admitted under oath that he never looked at the property, and filled the form out sight unseen. Then the small claims court judge said, “This man is a contractor. He did everything in his power to do a good job. Case dismissed.”
And in most places, there is no appeal to a small claims judgment...
Actually, there seems to be some confusion in your points.
First, a HOME INSPECTION is not normally a “building inspection” process. Building inspections are performed when construction has taken place. A home inspection is a different process.
It is done by a contracted source to check out the SYTEMS and condition of the asset. A proper job would find the deficiencies and detail the estimated cost to cover them. It is negotiation tool, that can allow the seller or buyer the opportunity to take care of the problems. It is sorta like getting a boat “survey”!
I’m a general contractor... No longer working, but still up with terminology...
When there are major problems, the agent should know that it's going to come back to bite him if the inspector is dishonest. I never hold it against an inspector who finds real problems, that's his job. The one I don't use a second time is the one who, in a CYA mode, frightens buyers out of a deal over minor or easily negotiated & fixed items.
Even with an inspection, some things just aren’t apparent.
The house my parents bought looked fine. The inspector found nothing. During our first winter it snowed with a resulting four feet of snow pack. Then what the locals call a ‘Pineapple Express’, a huge rain storm front with 62 degree temps, moved through dropping 3” of rain each day for four days. Our daylight basement flooded severely.
To dig out the surrounding grounds, replace the footing drains, replace the cracked basement floors (hidden under wall-to-wall carpeting) and install a sump would cost a great deal of money. Under present circumstances it would result, combined with the mortgage, costing more than the house is presently worth.
Five years is a long time to wait before complaining about a leaky roof.
Five years later IMHO is a little late to sue.In Ohio after a year it becomes your problem because things do wear out over time.
He can always turn it into a mosque — Saudi Arabia will readily compensate him for it with interest.
Most home inspections are either worthless or scams... particularly if they at all involve the realtor who is of course actually working for the person selling the house. There simply has to be ZERO connection between the home inspector and the realtor period. However, even with this proviso I have a lot of problems with the concept of home inspections anyway because there is virtually no recourse if a home inspection is paid for by a purchaser AND a purchase is made that is influenced by what the home inspection report said AND it turns out that there is still a major problem with the house. Sure it is possible for problems to get missed or be hidden... but has anyone ever heard of suing the home inspector? I’m sure it has been done but has it ever been done successfully? Until there is a clear cut way for making the home inspector responsible for the quality of the home inspection report, most of them aren’t worth the paper they are written on. My advice to home purchasers is to become far more expert in houses so they can identify the important stuff themself.
The seller also has the responsibility to disclose known hidden defects. If the seller is unaware of them, the seller is not obligated to disclose.
At least that is my understanding of the requirements in Ohio.
I wanna work for Mike Holmes.
Of the myriad things I hate about Massachusetts, the one thing I like is that they are one of the states where homeowners are protected as you state. It is very easy to get full info on a person or company doing home inspections and homeowners are protected after the fact if problems arise from things at first deemed 'ok'.
You are correct. I did incorrectly interchange those terms without thinking.
Then he should call uncle mafundsalow for help.
I’m sorry, of course you’re right about the terms. I have been thinking rather a lot about BUILDING inspectors so that phrase came into my mind when I meant HOME inspector. And my dog died today so I’m not thinking very clearly at all.
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