I’m going to simplify this as much as possible.
My husband and I recently purchased a house. The previous owner had a shared meter between her and her sister (right next door). When we started to look at this house, our realtor told us the situation with the meter and said that the seller had talked to the water company about having another meter set for this house. Our realtor told us that the seller would be paying for everything (I have text proof). So we amended a contract basically stating that if the water company couldn’t place a meter (unlikely), we could back out of buying the house. We were under the impression that the meter would be soon set after this.
Fast forward to the day before closing we are calling the electrical company and water companies to be put into our name. No issues with the power company but when we called the water company they said that the seller had not had a meter placed yet so they could not change anything over. We called our realtor and she panicked. But I didn’t feel very confident in the actions of trying to resolve this. The next day, the lending company still let us close on the house and nothing was mentioned about the water meter.
Our neighbor has decided to have a well put in instead of a water meter (water company quoted her around $25k vs the well she had put in for $14k). We also decided to go with a well as it would be cheaper for both parties (us and seller agreed). A few weeks have went by and I’m starting to think the seller won’t be paying for the well. The seller did pay $4k down which was left in escrow towards our well but no more.
The more I’m starting to think that we will be left with a $10k bill for the well, I go back to look at paper work, etc to see what was said about the water situation. I have texts from our realtor stating that the seller would be paying for everything with the water situation and that we shouldn’t mention anything about it to our lender (also have text proof).
If you’ve ever bought a house for the first time, you know how much of a blur it is and you hope your realtor has the best interest at heart to guide you to make the right choice. I feel like we were taken advantage of and part of this feels illegal? Please advise me.
Location: TEXAS