A large chunk of roof shingles just slid off my house.

My first thought echoes what others have mentioned: if 30 shingles randomly fall off, my fear is there are more ready to come off.
My second thought was related to the pic Hank posted. My wife and I often watch "Holmes on Homes" and "Holmes Inspection" (I believe those are the show titles) Sunday evenings. I think it's a Canadian show, so they probably wouldn't be able to help. But when seeing the homes Holmes and Co. work on that look fine from the outside and have been "inspected" by a supposed professional, it's scary to think how many such homes are out there. And related to that, how many bad "inspectors" are out there.

 

IJAG, this worries me more than the B.S. in the seller's ad:

Sounds like your problem might not be "on" the roof, but what's under it. A home inspection company should know to inspect the wood underneath for problems ... it's easy to throw another layer of shingles on, but tougher (and more expensive) to fix what's underneath.

Unfortunately, I know this from experience.

Good luck.

 

I'd like to see what his response is to the house being advertised as having an "all new ... roof", and now admitting that it doesn't. And I'd be interested in hearing what the inspector has to say about it. I wonder if he knew it was supposed to have a new roof so he just glanced at it, or did even less than that, before signing off on it?

I'm no lawyer, but the warranty company may have recourse from the seller/flipper, if they were told the roof was new and that's what they believed they were guaranteeing.

In any case, I'm with Boom and Mizzou on this one. Turn it all over to your closing attorney, and don't rest until you have a new roof, with no money out of your own pocket.

 

Thanks, y'all. That's the next call I'm making.

I've emailed the inspector.

 

Would corruption possibly come into play here? I know there was a lot of shady stuff going on with flippers during the real estate "boom" in the middle part of the last decade. I wonder if these trends have continued in places.

 

Well, mine was an inspector I picked out. So I'm pretty sure he wasn't in cahoots with the seller. But I guess you never know!

 

Sold a home last October for $213,000.

Bought a nicer one with 3 times the land in a cheaper part of the country for $143,000, paid off the $8,500 mortgage on the home I sold, pocketed $50,000 and haven't made a mortgage payment in six months (and won't ever again).

That's the joy of home ownership.

 

Knock on wood, we've had very few problems in the 18 months we've owned our house. Fortunately, when we do have something that needs attention, we have any number of relatives or friends who know what the hell they're doing. One of the maintenance guys at my wife's school lives down the street, so he's been invaluable to us. Helped us install a new sump pump last week, actually.

Someone mentioned Mike Holmes from Holmes Inspection. Well, the one last night featured a house with widespread asbestos. They basically took 10 weeks, gutted the entire thing, and started over.

 

The problem with inspectors is, no matter how thorough they are, they don't have x-ray vision. They will spot the major surface problems. They won't spot even minor hidden problems. Any moron can look at a kitchen counter and say, Well, that's not level. Or that your chimney needs repointing. But the stuff you really have to worry about—wiring, plumbing, structure, insulation—most of that time, that's behind drywall. Or, in this case, under shingles.

Some inspectors are better than others, of course, but it's a job with built-in limitations. Mike Holmes is great, but how many times have you watched that show and he says, I'm not sure what's in here, we have to tear it out? An inspector can't do that. It's not your home yet.

 

Great point. Our inspector told us that up front. The inspection took a good 2 hours or so. He was very thorough...for what he could do.

 

Case in point, Ryan: In our current house, the owners had paid to have the first floor re-wired. They showed us the bill. Our inspector took the plug and switch plates off, and sure enough, new wiring.

Then I tear down the walls. Electrician had just reached up into the cavity and tied two feet of new wiring to old knob-and-tube. Thus, the conversion that allegedly had made the house safer had, in fact, made it much more dangerous, with all these buried blind junctions.

That electrician might have killed the kind old couple who owned our house. I was re-wiring anyway, so it didn't matter to me, really, except to confirm in my mind even more how evil some people are, and how easy it is for them to get away with it.

Sorry. Apparently I'm in a mood.