Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – It’s a nightmare situation for a buyer and seller about to go into contract – a storm knocks a massive tree onto the house causing major damage.
Host of Pointing You Home, heard Sundays at 8 a.m. on WMAL, Eric Stewart said the tree crushed the master bedroom of his client’s house and pulled the dining room wall away from the foundation.
Stewart said the home has hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, and it will likely take months to re-build the parts crushed by the tree.
“The best solution here is the buyer and the seller agree to extend the settlement to allow for the re-build, or the seller gets their insurance money, and the buyer agrees to accept that and re-build the house they want to assuming that the bank will allow that to happen..that is a big question,” Stewart said.
Stewart said thankfully the seller had already moved out of the house, so nobody was hurt.
While not commonplace, this kind of thing does happen. Ten years ago Stewart said a home his client was selling was crushed by a tree, and it took six months to re-build.
“This is the nature of real estate. You’re not trading a stock or a bond, you’re trading a physical piece of property, and it comes with limitations” Stewart said.
When homes are damaged in storms, Stewart said it’s critical for buyers and sellers to take a walk around the entire perimeter of the property looking for damage, especially on the roof. ======================================================================================================================================
Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Eric Stewart)
