Then there are Sellers like this . .

By Kelly DeBrosse | eXp Realty | 23+ years serving Raleigh, Wake & surrounding counties

Last week I told you about a seller who was arrested in the middle of a real estate transaction. This week I thought I should restore your faith in humanity a little bit, because there are sellers who get arrested…and then there are sellers like this one.

I recently represented a seller on a detached home that had been built in 1998. It was a great house, nicely landscaped, on city water and sewer, and honestly the kind of property that made a wonderful first home for someone. During the transaction, a leak was discovered underneath a water fixture. My seller investigated it, had the leak repaired, completed the other repairs that had been agreed upon, and everything moved forward exactly as it should. We closed, the buyer got the keys, and everyone went on with their lives.

A few weeks later, I received a call from the buyer’s agent. The new owner had apparently overloaded her washing machine, and when it backed up, it caused a much larger problem throughout the house. After investigating, they discovered roots somewhere in the outgoing drain pipes. Getting everything cleared and working properly again ended up costing the new homeowner a little more than $4,000.

The buyer’s agent wasn’t calling with accusations.He simply wanted to know whether my seller had ever experienced anything that might have indicated there was a problem with that drain line. It was a reasonable question. This wasn’t an especially old house, it was connected to city sewer, and having roots cause this kind of problem wasn’t something anyone had been expecting.

I called my seller and asked.

She had absolutely no knowledge of it. She had never experienced a backup, never been told there was a root problem and had nothing during her ownership that would have led her to believe there was one. As far as she knew, there had been nothing to disclose and certainly nothing she had intentionally left for the next owner to discover.

That could very easily have been the end of the conversation.

Instead, she said something that has stuck with me. She knew the roots hadn’t grown into those pipes in the few weeks since closing. Whatever had happened, the beginnings of that problem had almost certainly existed while she owned the house, even though she had no idea it was there.

Then she told me that she remembered being young herself and being faced with an unexpected, expensive repair. She remembered how difficult that was financially and how overwhelming a bill like that could feel when you were just getting started. She didn’t feel responsible for hiding something or failing to repair something she knew about. She simply felt badly for this young homeowner who had just bought a house and was suddenly staring at a repair bill of more than $4,000.

So she offered to help pay for it.

I have been doing this long enough to know that real estate can bring out every possible side of people. I have watched people argue over items that cost very little simply because they believed they were right. I have watched buyers and sellers draw very firm lines around exactly what the contract required them to do and absolutely nothing more. Sometimes that is necessary. A real estate transaction is a legal agreement, and there are good reasons we have contracts, inspections, disclosures and very specific responsibilities for everyone involved.

But every once in a while, somebody reminds you that there is also room for kindness.

My seller wasn’t asking, “Do I legally have to do this?” She knew she had no previous knowledge of the problem. She wasn’t trying to correct something she had concealed. She was simply looking at another person’s situation and remembering what it felt like when she had once been in a similar position.

There are a lot of things I remember about the transactions I have handled over the years. Sometimes I remember the problems we had to solve. Sometimes I remember the houses. Sometimes I remember situations so unusual that I know I’ll be telling the story for years.

And sometimes I remember the people.

Last week, apparently, it was the seller who got arrested.

This week, I’m very happy to tell you about this Seller that at least one Buyer in our market things is a angel. You know who you are!! Thank you!!