Radon found on inspection

[Dingus]

Depending on the price of the house, the seller may not care. The market in Ames is so absurd right now that they may feel confident they can find another buyer. Can you find another house you like?

It certainly doesn't hurt to ask - all part of the negotiations- but if that house is sub-$250k, you might not have a lot of leverage.

Edit: if it's over $500k then absolutely demand it. Not an expert by any stretch, but that seems to be where the market is right now based on what Ove seen.

It's between the figures you quoted. Being that what I find from friends/family and online is pretty much universal that the seller is responsible, I'm surprised I'm told we 'really can't ask'. If there's no risk, why not ask? If they say no they say no and its ~$1200-1500; it's not a roof or a foundation.

I'll talk with my realtor tomorrow and find out what the deal is.

 

[KennyPratt42]

Assuming that the radon test was done as part of the home inspection and that you are under contract on a fairly standard purchase agreement, after the home inspection you have a period of time to request any remedies to problems found during the inspection (including the radon level issue). The seller then has a period of time to respond with what they are willing to do which can be anywhere from agree to do exactly what you asked for to not being willing to do anything or something in between. So in a normal situation there is no risk in asking.

If I was in your shoes I would request $1,500 cash at closing so that you can rectify the problem. That way you can fix it in the manner that you think is best and you also don't run the risk of a delay in the project holding up closing (depending on how tight your time window is until closing). I also wouldn't be surprised about getting a counter from the seller for a lower dollar figure or that they want to have the mitigation system installed themselves (and try to save money that way).

If I was the seller it would all depend on how I felt about the price you are under contract. If it is around full asking price I would just pay the $1500. But if you worked down the price some and I thought it would be fairly easy to find another buyer at that same price, I would be inclined to say that I'm unwilling to do anything given how strong the market is in Ames at the moment. All they would need to do going forward is put on the seller's disclosure sheet that there was a radon test level of 4.3 in the basement. Sure it would be a red flag for some buyers, but others wouldn't notice and/or care.

 

[bringmagicback]

your realator is an idiot. You can ask the seller for anything. I asked for a cooler that was in the basement when I bought my last house.

 

[chuckd4735]

your realator is an idiot. You can ask the seller for anything. I asked for a cooler that was in the basement when I bought my last house.

I'm sure the realtor is just warning to be careful in what you ask for. If I was selling a house at that level of radon, and wasn't in a hurry to find a buyer, I'd refuse to pay for any. Plus it also depends on what other items jumped up on the inspection and what is the most important to the buyer. When we sold a few years ago, the buyer hit us with 10 things they wanted fixed, and some of them were so incredibly petty that if I had another potential buyer I would of moved on.

 

[Buster28]

When we sold our old house last fall, the buyers (from the western US) had a radon inspection done and the numbers were high, even for Iowa. They wanted a credit for installation and I said I would rather do it myself because I didn't want to give the credit for it, then never have it be installed. The house had only been on the market for 8 days before we got a couple offers, which was great - so we didn't have to keep our bridge loan up forever. My thought at that point was "it's only money." When you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's not that much to ensure a sale (for more than asking price). I guess it just depends on how important it is to you to get the old house off your hands asap. $1500-ish is the amount I was told for a couple estimates and ended up having Neighbors do the job. Fortunately the place we bought had very low radon levels and didn't have to worry about getting anything done there.

 

[CloneFan03]

When we bought 5 years ago, seller paid half and the realtors split the other half. They didn't want to miss out on commission so they paid to Ensure we bought. I'd absolutely ask and say it's an important factor in purchasing.

 

[isufbcurt]

When we sold our house in Ames we paid for the Radon stuff so we could get it sold (already had bought a new house).

I personally don't worry about the radon stuff, we didn't even have a radon test done at our current house.

 

[Pat]

It's between the figures you quoted. Being that what I find from friends/family and online is pretty much universal that the seller is responsible, I'm surprised I'm told we 'really can't ask'. If there's no risk, why not ask? If they say no they say no and its ~$1200-1500; it's not a roof or a foundation.

I'll talk with my realtor tomorrow and find out what the deal is.

Yeah, I'm really curious about your realtor's reasoning.

 

[CyArob]

If the seller doesn't want to install the mitigation, ask for money off the purchase price. I did this and knocked $5k off the price. Only $1250 for the install.

 

[larry]

The radon level in the house we bought was 16 on the first test, and when after installation the test level was still >4, the company put in a second pipe for free to get the level below 4. We bought it 14 years ago. I had no problem paying for the mitigation as we'd been looking at houses for a couple of months and nothing was even close to what we wanted and could afford until we found this one.

 

[BoxsterCy]

 

[bringmagicback]

I'm sure the realtor is just warning to be careful in what you ask for. If I was selling a house at that level of radon, and wasn't in a hurry to find a buyer, I'd refuse to pay for any. Plus it also depends on what other items jumped up on the inspection and what is the most important to the buyer. When we sold a few years ago, the buyer hit us with 10 things they wanted fixed, and some of them were so incredibly petty that if I had another potential buyer I would of moved on.

but you didnt so it worked out. thats why you always ask, worst they can say is no.

 

[FerShizzle]

They should mitigate it because you can walk away from a contract over this and they must now disclose it to every potential buyer in the future.

This

 

[Dingus]

I'm sure the realtor is just warning to be careful in what you ask for. If I was selling a house at that level of radon, and wasn't in a hurry to find a buyer, I'd refuse to pay for any. Plus it also depends on what other items jumped up on the inspection and what is the most important to the buyer. When we sold a few years ago, the buyer hit us with 10 things they wanted fixed, and some of them were so incredibly petty that if I had another potential buyer I would of moved on.

How would you do this; I assume you were under contract at the time, right? Or do you mean you would have declined to fix stuff and assume they would have backed out?

 

[mj4cy]

We bought our house a year ago and it tested high. The seller disclosed that they would not pay for remediation. We paid to have it mitigated (one of those better safe than sorry things), but know that'll help the house value down the line.

 

[Three4Cy]

Other thing to remember is - if the house has been closed up all winter their is a good chance the radon levels in the house will be higher because it has nowhere to escape in the winter.

Again, this is why the people I work with say you really need to monitor it over a 3-6 month period vs. a one time shot.

 

[chuckd4735]

How would you do this; I assume you were under contract at the time, right? Or do you mean you would have declined to fix stuff and assume they would have backed out?

Yes. There were a few legit things that needed to be fixed as I was ok with that. Others no. I would of refused to anything.

 

[chuckd4735]

but you didnt so it worked out. thats why you always ask, worst they can say is no.

Agree. However, when we bought our house down here in KC, the realtor told us to tread carefully because there was likely multiple offers, and if we started asking for petty things, we might not get anything fixed.

 

[SoapyCy]

we demanded one on our 125k house and then split the cost on our 180k house. if it helps you sleep at night get one.

 

[Clonefan32]

Most Purchase Agreements set a pCi/L level where the Seller agrees to either mitigate or the deal is called off. I've never heard of this "since it's borderline we can't ask for it" response from your realtor. Frankly, it sounds to me like someone who doesn't want to jeopardize losing the deal and thus their commission.

Also, you really are in the power position at this point. They will have to disclose the radon findings to any new buyers if your deal falls through. If they don't mitigate now they are pretty much just hoping to find a new buyer who doesn't care about radon issues.