DEAR BARRY: The buyer of our home wants to do his own inspection. Our concern is that he wants to get up on the roof. Our home is very high off the ground, and the roof pitch is steep. He also wants to climb into the attic. I'm concerned he may fall and hurt himself and/or damage something while in the attic. We don't want to offend the buyer, but we have a great concern. What do you advise? --Janette
DEAR JANETTE: Perhaps you could have the buyer sign a liability waiver stipulating that he will hold you blameless in the event that he is injured during his inspection and that he will pay for anything that is accidentally broken. To ensure that this would be binding, you should obtain a legal form from a lawyer.
Another option is offering to split the cost of a professional home inspection. When compared with the cost of an attorney, it might even be worth it to pay the entire inspection fee.
That aside: If your buyer believes that he is qualified to perform the same evaluation as a professional home inspector, he is very naive. It takes years of full-time inspection work to become truly qualified as a home inspector. If your buyer wants to experience undisclosed defects after the close of escrow, he should go ahead and do his own inspection.
DEAR BARRY: When we purchased our home, the termite inspector found plumbing leaks under the bathroom. But the home inspector did not inspect under the building because there was water on the ground, and he said this would be unsafe. He recommended ground drainage improvements to enable further inspection, but we went ahead without further inspection and bought the property. That turned out to be a mistake. Within days of moving in, we had a major sewage backup in the bathrooms. It turns out that we have rusted-out drainpipes and lots of roots in the main sewer line. We believe the sellers knew about these problems but said nothing. What should we do? --Nick
DEAR NICK: If the pest inspector found leaking under the building, he was not deterred by water on the ground. Perhaps the home inspector was too squeamish and should have done the same. Groundwater in a crawl space is an inconvenience for a home inspector, and no one except a small kid enjoys crawling in the mud. But it hardly qualifies as a significant safety hazard.
On the other hand, if the water on the ground was from leaking sewage, the inspector was wise to stay out, and the pest inspector probably should have done the same.
If the seller claims no knowledge of the problem, proving otherwise could be difficult, but it seems unlikely that the plumbing problems just occurred for the first time. Sometimes a neighbor has knowledge of past plumbing problems. This is something to investigate by asking around.
You need to obtain a repair bid from a licensed plumbing contractor. Hopefully, the costs will not be excessive. If repairs are expensive, you should get some legal advice regarding seller liability.
Updated at 11:55 a.m. ET: In a dramatic victory for President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the 2010 health care law Thursday, preserving Obama’s landmark legislative achievement.
The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who held that the law was a valid exercise of Congress’s power to tax.
Roberts re-framed the debate over health care as a debate over increasing taxes. Congress, he said, is “increasing taxes” on those who choose to go uninsured.
Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUS blog breaks down the Supreme Court's ruling on health care. Also, when asked why Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the law, Goldstein said, "I think he believed it."
The 2010 law, the Affordable Care Act, requires non-exempted individuals to maintain a minimum level of health insurance or pay a tax penalty.
The essence of Roberts’s ruling was:
• “The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part,” Roberts wrote.
• “The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it.”
• But “it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but (who) choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.”
Roberts made a point of noting that he and the other justices “possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court upholds President Obama's national health-care insurance act. NBC's Pete Williams reports. TODAY's Matt Lauer discusses the ruling with NBC's Savannah Guthrie and David Gregory, host of "Meet the Press."
The law, Roberts wrote, “makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.”
Jason Reed / Reuters
A sharply divided Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the centerpiece of Obama's signature healthcare overhaul law that requires that most Americans get insurance by 2014 or pay a financial penalty.
He said “The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a ‘fairly possible’ one.”
He said the Supreme Court precedent is that “every reasonable construction” of a law passed by Congress “must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.”
Veteran Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein told NBC’s Pete Williams that “the Affordable Care Act was saved by Chief Justice John Roberts.”
Claire McAndrew of Washington, left, and Donny Kirsch of Washington celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Thursday, after a the court's ruling on health care.
Goldstein said the Obama administration “got the one vote they really needed in Chief Justice John Roberts.”
When he served in the Senate in 2005, Obama voted against confirming Roberts as chief justice, arguing that he lacked empathy for underdogs and “he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.”
(Twenty-one other Democratic senators, including Joe Biden, also voted against confirming Roberts. Twenty-two Democratic senators voted to confirm him.)
Obama hailed his victory: “The highest court in the land has now spoken. We will continue to implement this law and we'll work together to improve on it where we can.”
But he urged Americans to refrain from re-fighting "the political battles of two years ago" or trying to "go back to the way things were.”
The four justices joining Roberts in upholding the law were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The dissenting justices were Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
For individuals who choose to not comply with the individual insurance mandate, Congress deliberately chose to make the penalty fairly weak: only $95 for 2014; $325 for 2015; and $695 in 2016.
After 2016, that $695 amount is indexed to the consumer price index.
Congress specifically did not allow the use of liens and seizures of property as methods of enforcing the penalty.
Non-compliance with the mandate is also not subject to criminal or civil penalties under the Tax Code and interest does not accrue for failure to pay the penalty in a timely manner, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
Chief Justice Roberts announces the Supreme Court's opinion in health care law
NBC's Pete Williams reported that Roberts reasoned that “there’s no real compulsion here” since those who do not pay the penalty for not having insurance can’t be sent to jail. “This is one of the scenarios that administration officials had considered that if the court did this they would consider it a big victory,” Williams said.
In his reaction to the court’s decision, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney said, “What the court did today was say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do was say that Obamacare is good law or that it's good policy.”
He said the ruling had made it clear “If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have replace President Obama.”
But in a major victory for the states who challenged the law, the court said that the Obama administration cannot coerce states to go along with the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people.
The financial pressure which the federal government puts on the states in the expansion of Medicaid “is a gun to the head,” Roberts wrote.
“A State that opts out of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion in health care coverage thus stands to lose not merely ‘a relatively small percentage’ of its existing Medicaid funding, but all of it,” Roberts said.
Congress cannot “penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding,” Roberts said.
The Medicaid provision is projected to add nearly 30 million more people to the insurance program for low-income Americans -- but the court’s decision left states free to opt out of the expansion if they choose.
Tyler Encourages Responsible Water Use Tyler remains under voluntary water restrictions to help conserve supplies as another hot Texas summer closes in. The city has been on voluntary restrictions since late March, easing a December order that called for mandatory cutbacks. Tyler Public Works Director Greg Morgan said Tuesday the city is taking this proactive measure to voluntarily conserve water now for later. "The City of Tyler currently remains under step one water conservation measures," Morgan said. Plentiful spring rainfall helped refill East Texas lakes and recharge the soil -- two pluses going into the hot, dry months ahead -- but levels still are below normal. "The Lake Tyler/Lake Tyler East system still remains about 2.5 feet down from a full elevation of 375.5," Morgan said. "As such, it is incumbent upon the customers of Tyler Water Utilities to remain good stewards of our environment and to utilize this natural resource in a responsible manner." Tyler has a very stable, long-term water supply that is projected to last for decades, if people use it responsibly, officials said. Morgan said water production and lake levels are being evaluated on a daily basis, and staff is prepared to adjust conservation measures as needed to conserve.
National Weather Service officials said Tuesday the summer months should be somewhat hotter and drier than normal, but nothing close to the withering conditions of last summer. It is, after all, Texas. "To quote a cliche, on the fourth of July it's going to be hotter than a firecracker," Hydrologist C.S. Ross said this week. For fall, there are indications of a return to El Nino conditions, characterized by cooler, wet weather. In the interim, residents are asked to limit irrigation of landscaped areas to Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays if their street address ends in an even number (0,2,4,6,8); or Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays if their address ends with an odd number (1,3,5,7,9). Irrigation also should be done between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., officials said. Tyler's pumping capacity is about 72 million gallons per day -- 8 million from deep water wells, 34 million from Lake Tyler and Lake Tyler East and 30 million from Lake Palestine. The city of Dallas also has rights to remove water from Lake Palestine but is not yet drawing from that source, officials said. Tyler first began calling for voluntary cutbacks last October. At that time, Lake Tyler was 6.9 feet below spillway levels and Lake Palestine was about 5.9 feet low, records show. Residents are asked to not waste water. Waste is considered the elective use of water, such as washing house windows, sidings, eaves and roof with a hose without the use of a bucket, officials said. Other types of water waste include washing driveways, streets, curbs, gutters and vehicles without a cut-off valve and bucket. External Relations Director Susan Guthrie said residents should check their sprinkler systems to ensure they are appropriately timed and positioned. "When you set your sprinkler systems, make sure they are not watering the streets and sidewalks," she said. Residents also are asked to check for leaking faucets and toilets to help conserve.
Shy Shinalt
Keller Williams Tyler
903.533.8114 www.shyshinalt.com
Tyler
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