In December 2020, the contractor we hired to restore the house abandoned work on the house. They refused to return calls be anybody regarding the house. They would not respond to texts. The would not respond to emails. The county was tallying up violations again and the contractor was guilty of every single one of them but because the property was ours, we were getting extremely negative attention from the county and neighborhood. Even our closest neighbors had become less friendly over time. We were arriving at a point where we knew we did not want to live in that house anymore; there were just way too many mixed memories, especially negative ones. It was more than practical reasoning that led us to choose to now want to live there or even in that city anymore. We wanted to cut all ties. So much had already changed in the decades that we had lived in that region and it wasn't a change for the better.
We were considering moving back to the city where we were currently rooming. We had lived here before for nine years and even though this place had changed it was still familiar enough that we felt confident that we could make a life out here again. Unfortunately, real estate had inflated considerably since when we first came to this town, but we figured it was still manageable. What we didn't know what that it was still steadily increasing with time and this was going to pose a problem.
In February 2021, we gave up on the contractor. it was obvious that things had reached their absolute worst possible status and would never improve. Unfortunately, we did not have the finances to take them to court, plus the lawyers we consulted all pretty much said the same thing- we might win but won't get much out of it and it could take months or years to win. plus, were told that all these lawyers were expensive and we couldn't currently afford their fees, which naturally left us feeling hopeless.
So we got in touch with a different realtor we had contacted in the beginning who turned out to be a real pain in the butt. She remembered being in touch with us previously, but she seemed to think we turned her services down when all we had asked her was if her company could recommend a contractor or other service providers in regards to what needed to be done with the house. She blew us off and eventually said she did not (which turned out to be a lie) and we resumed looking for our search for service providers. We were nowhere near ready to sell at the time, but apparently she held a grudge about something that didn't happen. This time we asked for her recommendations again and opted to go with her services after saying she know a contractor that her company has been using for years...
The realtor went through the house and sent videos showing its current condition. it was gravely disappointing. The first contractor we hired didn't restore the house- they attempted to remodel it contrary to our constant refusals. They did many things contrary to contract. They ignored corrected errors on the contract. They used substandard materials. It was asserted that they had used materials that had been previously installed and used. Areas that had been completed were not weatherproofed and more leaks happened and mildew once again grew in a portion of the basement and had to again be remediated and parts had to be replaced. They lied about completion of portions of the house and correcting errors. A lot of their installation was substandard and had to be redone more than once. the list goes on and it really is upsetting to think a company would take advantage of a handicapped senior female so grossly. Even when I tried to assist on my mother's behalf, I didn't usually get useful results and they would lie to me as well. They have been caught on so many lies by me, my mother, and various other people. As such, it was best to move on with getting the house complete asap and used the contractor associated with the realtor, who turned out to be great but also more expensive than originally planned because of correcting other faults either ignored and worsened or created directly by the first contractor.
We were running out of money and we had to get the house sold fast, which the second contractor was able to accomplish. The realtor took care of the rest of the process, but didn't handle it well- we lost the first bidder to a second bidder offering only slightly more than the current top bid. The second bidder waived inspections and then had them done anyway and she and her realtor played shenanigans with my realtor, which in turn caused us to lose money on the deal, far less that the initial offer. The realtor didn't know how to play hardball with these people and the best she could do was threaten them with breach of contract if they continued behaving as they implied. finally an agreement was resolved, but we lost over 130k on the final deal which was closed at the end of April this year, which crushed my mother's spirits incredibly. We were counting on that high bid so much and then to lose such a chunk of it really knocked the wind out of us. This is because we wanted to replenish my mother's retirement, plus gets a nice home that was affordable- however we came to realize real estate prices were about 200k more in the city where we were currently staying than shortly after the house had flooded. because of this we had to start searching other cities further out, which affects our current grocery and prescription delivery services...
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