Roof Repair - Buying home

[michelleg]

My husband and I put in an offer to buy a home. The roof is in DESPERATE need of repair. There were shingles laying on the ground. We put into our offer for the seller to put on a new roof. The seller countered well above their asking price with putting on a new roof.

My issue here is this:

Our realtor used to have this house for sale (the listing has since expired). Our realtor told us that the owner already has materials for the roof. There was previous hail damage and their insurance paid the seller to fix the roof. However, the seller didn't touch the roof after receiving money from their insurance company. How can the seller get money from their insurance company to fix the roof and then turn around and expect us to pay more for the house to fix the roof? Isn't this insurance fraud?

Thanks

[pushkins]

When insurance "pays out" a claim it is not always with the condition of "that" repair was completed, it used to always be that the insurance company paid the contractor selected to do the repair, this way they guaranteed the repair was completed. Now many insurance companies just pay out to the client and leave it to the client to make the repair. The insurance company records this as a "roof replacement payout" so should three years later a claim is made for a "roof" or water damage, they will come out and look, they will look up their paperwork and see a new roof was paid for and should have been installed but wasn't so any damage under that roof will be denied.

It is up to the insurance company to check to make sure their claim has been dealt with correctly, however as I mentioned above they really don't care, they keep collecting your premium, when you make that next claim, they deny it.

If it were me and knowing what you know (assuming it is actually fact), I'd either counter back again or walk away from the deal, the part that would scare me the most is if they are dishonest with this, what else is there ?