Mold was Supposedly Remediated and Some Structural Damage Not on Inspection-Any Recourse?

Cross posted to r/legaladvice

We purchased a 120 year old farmhouse at the end of April in Kentucky. During the inspection process we found that there was some structural support damage and mold on the beams and underside of floors. From our talks with the inspector, he agreed that the mold was the most important issue and that we should get taken care of before closing. In our purchasing agreement, we asked for a credit towards foundation/structure repairs and for the mold in the crawlspace to be remediated and the areas to be painted with KILZ paint. About a week before closing we received pictures of the KILZ paint. When we and our banker asked for evidence that the mold had been remediated, we were sent an invoice where it states the mold was remediated and the areas painted.

In addition to this, when we spoke to the inspector after he did the inspection back in April he verbally told us he was not able to access the crawl space under my sons room.

Fast forward to this week. We need the floors replaced in what will be our sons room. A contractor came out and crawled all under the house - including under our sons room which actually was accessible. He came back and said that the extent of the structural damage is much worse than we had been led to believe and that no bank would have approved a loan if they knew how bad it really was. And on top of that, there was mold everywhere under the house- even growing on the dirt! And because our air ducts run under our house, I had just noticed this week where there was mold starting to grow above a vent on a wall. The contractor said that also means the whole HVAC/furnance system needs to be remediated.

After looking through our emails throughout closing and doing some digging, it looks like the company that did the "mold remediation" is the property management company that the sellers realtor works for. The contractor said no mold remediation had taken place from what he could see.

We've reached out to our realtor, who said he would contact the broker.The broker then called my husband and explained that since techincally we paid for the inspection, the structural damage is on us. However, the broker my husband spoke to was not the broker that handled our closing. Apparently our realtor has since moved companies and he contacted the broker at his current company.

Do we have any recourse in any of this? We understand if we did not do our proper due diligence after the remediation had taken place, but we assumed based on the invoice and pictures that it had been taken care of. We did know about *some* of the structural damage needed, but not all the damage under my son's room.

Any advice on who to contact now? My husband is going to go to our credit union this morning to make them aware of the situation. Should we try and get in contact with the broker from our realtors previous company? Do we contact the inspectors company since he didn't actually inspect the area under my sons room? Our homeowners insurance company? An attorney?

Are we SOL? We understand if we are and are prepared to face the consequences of our very dumb and naive first time home buying situation and chalk it up to a very tough lesson learned. It's just hard to not feel frustrated with the situation given that some of the work we were told was done doesn't appear to have actually been done and the other damage we weren't aware of.

We just need to get this taken care of quickly as we have 2 toddlers and a baby on the way, so mold and an unstable home are not safe for anyone involved

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated!

submitted by /u/ruthyanney
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/xl2sif/mold_was_supposedly_remediated_and_some/