Seller's Disclosure

I was 21 when I purchased my first home. It was modest, recently renovated, and cost me about $45,000. When my wife and I were married for a very short time we decided to put my bachelor pad the market and try to find a "home of our own." (This was mostly for my wife who felt like she was invading my space). We put the house on the market for $20,000 above what we owed....and three days later (before a sign could even be put up in the yard) our house sold. We walked away with a tidy little sum of cash that we used to buy furniture and pay off bad debt. Our first year of marriage seemed to be off to a great start....until we purchased our newer home on St. Louis (in Joplin). This home seemed like a step up from what we were living in .... 1700 sq ft, newer appliances, newer everything. It seemed like the smartest choice to make considering we had less than 30 days to find a home. We purchased our "first home" for $84,900. The move was exciting and we started to anxiously make plans for redecorating and some mild renovation to update the brass fixtures.
A mere eight months into our new home bliss a flood of rain fell upon Joplin and left our fully finished 700 sq ft. basement in 3 inches of water. That day I shall never forget. My wife called me frantically at work "I just walked into our back door and my tennis shoes are soaked, it looks like a pond in here." My heart sunk. The reality sank in. I called our insurance agent who could only offer a "good luck" wish for us -- we weren't in a flood zone and didn't carry flood insurance so we had to eat the costs ourselves. It was nothing short of devestating.
The following weeks we spent cleaning up our havoc of mess in our home and finally reasoned with the option "this was probably a fluke thing and it won't happen again." We laid new carpet and starting putting things back in place.
Four months later it flooded again. Only worse. Then two months later it did it again, then again, then again. It got to the point that everytime it rained we were biting our finger and toenails wondering "are we going to have to air out the basement again??" A sump pump did nothing. We had already exhausted all resources. We were up a creek with no paddle.
We had a specialist come out and hypothesize that our home had indeed flooded every year it was on the earth but left little evidence so previous owners could get away without disclosing this pertinent information. The four previous owners selling this 8 year-old home suddenly made sense! We talked to a lawyer....he laughed at us. Our options were few. The mortgage company we went through offered little help; they couldn't finance us to attempt to fix our flooding home because we owed $81,000 on the home. The cost to fix everything was between $8,000-$20,000. This was also the time the housing market seemed to be falling.
During all this mess my wife became pregnant -- a surprise and joy for both of us. Now we worried not just for us, but for the unborn child. Friends started putting thoughts in our mind about mold -- how unhealthy it was for the baby.
Finally the light seemed more bright when we spoke with FEMA who offered us $1,000 up front to fix what we could and also referred us to SBA (Small Business Administration) a branch of the government that offers loans at low interest rate for those who couldn't get approve anywhere else. Lucky for us we were at the end of our rope and SBA threw us a small loan at a low interest rate. We signed on the dotted line. With the help of SBA and my mother-in-law we put in a drainage system around our home and "fixed" the problem.
The week my daughter was brought home from the hospital the new system was being put in.
That was 16 months ago. Today our home is cozy, warm,.....and very dry.

Don't even get me started on the extra $10,000 we owe on our home.