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I'm in escrow on a house that has never been lived in. (save the "still overpriced" proclamations and "idiot buyer" comments...)

My inspector finds the house to be in good condition with the following notable exception: the pillars/columns in the front and the back of the house do not have cement footings. You read that right. He says that it can be fixed and has actually seen such things overlooked before, especially since these columns do not take a structural load. He is surprised that the county inspector didn't pick it up, which prompts me to hit the county website to fetch the permit information. On the county website I see the permit is still OPEN and notice that all of the inspection categories FAILED.

First surprise, then confusion, then anger...

WTH?? So no wonder these pillars don't have cement footings - the house has not had its final inspections nor has it been issued a certificate of occupancy!

My father in law is our Realtor and our Mortgage Broker (save the hateful comments on that - he too thinks it is an industry full of scumbags). He calls the sellers agents (two of them are co-listing the place) and they are pissed at the sellers and floored to learn this.

The house is a custom and decked out with all of the goodies - that is, with the exception of the missing cement footings under the stucco columns/pillars.

Obviously, I'm not buying a house that doesn't have a certificate of occupancy. Correct me if I am wrong, but unless it is an all-cash purchase, you can't even buy a single family dwelling unless it has passed final inspection and has been issued a certificate of occupancy.

These listing agents are set to collect a combined $21K (3% of the purchase price) and didn't bother to check on this with the seller until my due diligence brought it to their attention.

Is my frustration directed properly? From all indications, the listing agents are pissed at the sellers and if I were them, I would be telling the sellers to go find another listing agent.

My opinion is that we are already in escrow and these are items the seller has to fix per sections 1 and 2 of our offer, so unless they fix the items, get the inspections passed, and obtain a certificate of occupancy from the county, we back out of the deal and demand they refund any money spent to date on inspections. In a way they are screwed – no one will buy the property unless they fix these items. Seems to me at this stage that the sellers are seeing what they can get away with…

Any constructive, non-politically-oriented thoughts here?

#housing