We finally had an offer accepted after 3 years but we think we need to back out

This is a tough one for us. We’ve been looking for the perfect forever home since spring of 2021. Timing never worked out with house prices and interest rates, but we finally found a house that was recently listed that we liked and was mostly in budget. It has a nice big yard and a cute (albeit somewhat small) house. It would be a temporary spot for us-maybe 5 years. It’s in a great town with excellent schools and very close to grandparents in the same town. We walked it through and it wasn’t perfect-we made a little list of doable upgrades-but we thought it was a great starter home to begin raising our family of 2 (2y and 0y).

Prior to putting in an offer, we had begun doing diligence (a lot of it) on the septic. It passed Title V in February. But we didn’t know how old it was and didn’t want to get stuck with replacing it, so we asked. The current owners have only been there for 10 years, so they weren’t sure. The house was built in 1963 and the town had no record of septic installation. Additionally, they did have record of a leach pit upgrade in 1983, which is supposedly when the house was upgraded from 2br to 4br (although it’s worth nothing that even though the Title V has it as a 4br, the town assessor’s office still shows 2br). This was the last they had on record of septic. There were no documented permits filed for anything septic related. We went to the town and they told us there are no more records, but that we can come in and look. So we did. We also found nothing else. The seller’s realtor told us “it’s pretty normal to have septics this old in this area.” I had never heard of a 60+ year old septic. So we called and spoke with the person who provided the Title V as well as the company who last pumped it in 2023. The pumpers said they don’t seem to recall any issues, but weren’t sure since it was a year ago. The person who authorized the Title V said that it’s a very sandy and gravel road, which is great for septic and is likely why it’s lasted as long as it has (if it is indeed original). So yes, red flag to us, but we moved forward with our offer and asked to have a Title V performed. The sellers declined. Their reasoning was because they did the Title V in February so that the grass could grow back in for when they planned to sell it. They instead offered us a $5000 credit. We chose to proceed since this seemed like the only problem.

We put in an offer the weekend after open houses and it was accepted with the $5000 credit toward septic. As we understand it, there were no competing offers.

A separate red flag, since this is an in-demand town and the price seemed on par with others, was that we were the only offer. That said, it was also election week, so maybe it was possible that people were hesitating. We chalked this up as luck on our part.

Yesterday was the home inspection. This is the reason we’re here now. We’re so distraught since we finally found a place for our family, but we feel like the home inspector-who did an incredibly thorough job-discovered too many additional items that add up to what we feel would be a nightmare.

The initial findings we felt like we could ask for a credit from the sellers:

1. Radon is at elevated levels and needs ventilation: $1500.
2. Bathroom ceiling fan is not ventilating properly and needs to be fixed: $800
3. Attic had moisture and needs remedy. Suggestion was ridge vents: $2000

Despite the fact that during the inspection, the seller’s realtor began suggesting radon companies, indicating she expected us to fix it, we thought this was small enough to just ask for a credit and fix it ourselves (done the right way, not the cheap way). We haven’t yet done this.

The bigger problems were that the inspector identified the chimney as needing a liner: $7500 and possibly some other masonry work, and that the siding is also original to the house. While he couldn’t estimate an exact time as to when the siding would need to be replaced, he felt 3-5 years would be an accurate timeline since some are curling and others are separating, revealing the old-style boards behind it. So this would possibly be $30k.

There were quite a few other little weird things that came up as well that we were wiling to overlook. For example, they claim they installed 13 Anderson windows in 2019 but there’s no proof whatsoever the windows are Anderson. In the permit, it shows as about $2300-far too low an amount for 13 Anderson windows. The windows weren’t bad, but we couldn’t locate any branding on them.

After all these potential issues, coupled with a wildcard 60 year old septic and siding, it seems like this could cost us a lot up front for a home we don’t plan on living in forever. If we bought this home but eventually found our forever home and had this house as a contingency, I feel like any inspector would point out the same concerns and then we’d be on the receiving end of it and have to explain away a 60 year old septic and original siding.

I’m not really sure why I’m posting this all here. Maybe we’re just looking for some advice? Do we back out of this mess before it creates a huge headache for our family? Or are we overreacting and these are normal things that come up in inspections and that most homeowners just deal with? I suppose it just freaks us out that there seem to be some likely expensive fixes right up front. We were hoping to move in and make some cute renovations, not fix someone else’s house. Ugh! We’re so distraught. 😩

submitted by /u/AMercifulHello
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1gq73m4/we_finally_had_an_offer_accepted_after_3_years/