What is a legitimate seller?

Seller of house won't turn on utilities - what do we do?

• First, let me say that this will be a long question. So only those devoted to giving a good answer should respond. My wife and I are trying to buy our first home. We have a limited budget, but also have about $16,000 in cash for a down payment. Ideally, we wanted our down payment to be 20% to avoid PMI. After tons of looking around, we found a very nice home in our town that was in our budget. The home is only 10 years old, a year old roof, and all hard wood floors. 3 bedroom, 1 bath, and sits on roughly an acre of land in the city limits. We made an offer and it was accepted. We are doing an FHA loan. There were some minor things wrong with the house, mainly, one bedroom door missing, 4 light fixtures inside missing, 1 light fixture outside broken, the doorbell button broken, small stuff, IMO. The seller agreed to our offer and agreed to fix these problems mentioned above. We signed the contract 12 days ago. Initially, in the contract it stated that we had 10 days to get an inspection done. So, on the 4th day into the contract, I had a home inspector scheduled to come out. On the day of the inspection, we find out that the utilities are all off in the house. The house is vacant, but it is not a foreclosure. The seller moved out and is living with family now due to her age. She does, however, have family members that have agreed to fix up the property on her behalf. We have spoken to them in person, actually, at the house. Now, the utilities still had not been turned on 4 days out from the contract, but since I already had the home inspection scheduled, I had the inspector come out anyways. Most things looked pretty good, but obviously we could not check the water, gas, or electric in the house or anything that uses those utilities. As of today, 12 days out from the signing of the contract and the seller's agreement to our offer, the utilities still have not been turned on. To make matters worse, where this is an FHA loan, an appraisal has been ordered on the home, and he or she could appraise the house any day now. Obviously, this creates an issue, because they can't check anything that uses the utilities and we're guessing, they would appraise the home well-below our offer because of this. We're a bit stuck, as to what to do now. Our Realtor has been going back and forth with the listing agent and they can't seem to get the seller to turn on the utilities. In fact, the listing agent went to the home today and tried calling the seller several times to see what the status was on the utilities and fixes, but could not get ahold of anyone. Now, we're out $300+ for a home inspection, and if we have to back out of the house because it appraises too low, that's almost $500 more for the appraiser to come out. How long should we wait this out and what should we do if we can't close the deal because the seller refused to turn on the utilities and make the agreed upon fixes to the property?

• Answer:

  The seller has no obligation or responsibility to turn on the electric and gas for you to have an inspection. A good inspector should clearly state in his report those items he was not able to inspect for working order or condition. Your realtor needs to man up and make sure that at closing, these issues are part of the settlement papers. The title company can withhold a fixed amount of money at closing for unanticipated repairs. Once you close, and have all the power turned on in your name, have the inspector back for a final inspection of the heating system, electric panels, dishwasher, range, etc. If the home is only 10 years old, things should still be in good working order. I hope that when your realtor prepared your offer to purchase, he put all the contingent issues in writing. If he didn't, the seller has no responsibility, verbal agreements are worthless. Just insist that a substantial amount of money be withheld at closing. And, don't use the same realtor again.