Closed Today on Sale

Um, given the fact that most co-ops require licensed electricians to do any kind of work, AND the fact that most licensed electricians charge a minimum of $400 just to walk through your front door, I think $500 is more than reasonable.

Why did you not have the outlets fixed in the first place?

Congratulations on selling your apartment. A funny story to share, my mother also sold her house - closed at the end of October. It was touch & go right to the end because the wife didn't want to go through with the sale but the husband did. It is now a law in NYS to have a working smoke detector/carbon monoxide detector when a property changes hands. Mom didn't have one, so we purchased a new one. The husband decided that he wanted a second in order to close - the REALTOR stepped up to the plate and purchased it to get the deal done. Sometimes, both buyers & sellers can be too difficult.

handyman would fix it for 50 -

regardless apt is sold as is --

Knowing that the outlets were broken, not revealing it and then not expecting to compensate the buyers for your non-disclosure...that's rich

Rent_or_Buy: If the outlets didn't work when you bought the place, what concession did you get from the seller?

"handyman would fix it for 50 -"

Nice. This is how apartment fires start.

And this is why co-op boards are such a pain in the ass over every "little" thing like this.

Oh, please, Matt. Like your family didn't replace outlets themselves in your tract house on the mainland. Rocket science it isn't.

If Joe Blow wants to do his own electrical wiring in his tract house, that's his problem.

If he wants to do it under MY roof, it's MY problem.

Sorry, I thought Rent_or_Buy was referring to the building's handyman actually hired by the coop board. Hopefully that guy knows what he's doing, and can charge only $50 where an outside electrician would get $500 because the handyman is getting a base salary from the coop. Presumably the building handyman knows the building well and wouldn't take on a project that was beyond his expertise.

"Sorry, I thought Rent_or_Buy was referring to the building's handyman actually hired by the coop board. "

Unless he's a licensed electrician, no co-op board would hire him to do any electrical work in the building.

This is a no-brainer.

This just in: when you hire a licensed electrician in NYC, you virtually never get a licensed electrician doing the electrical work.

AH: so true.

don't you love it when nycmatt calls a no brainer?

Ditto plumbers, having the "license" is akin to having a license to print $, because you can get underlings to work for you for a pittance.

Every electrical outlet is tested during a walk through?

When we bought our first apt, I was a total dork and tested every outlet.

hotproperty, there are in theory three ways to test the electricity during a walk-through.

1) You make sure every outlet works (we did this the old-fashioned way, by moving a lamp around);

2) You make sure working GFIs (ground-fault interrupters) are in the bathroom and kitchen outlets. A GFI is the safety device that breaks the electrical circuit if, say, you toss the hairdryer into the bathtub. (Even though it should work and keep the person in the tub from being electrocuted, please don't try this at home). The inspector has a gizmo that does this. We didn't do it on our own outlets, though we should have, but I'm pretty sure the gizmo is probably only about $15 at a hardware store.

Technically, if there are not working GFIs, the property is not up to code, and the property must be remediated by the seller.

3) You check the amperage on the circuit breakers. It's possible that even if the outlets work, and there are GFIs in place, that the apartment was wired to one amperage (load) that is below the current one -- code has been changed to allow the idea of modern power-sucking devices such as computers. If the amperage isn't high enough for current code -- I just had this happen on a prewar I sold -- then the property must be remediated by seller. We did a $500 credit to buyer, I think.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Frontporch - only $500 to increase the electric capability for an entire apartment? That seems like a really good deal for the seller - could cost thousands.

"You check the amperage on the circuit breakers. It's possible that even if the outlets work, and there are GFIs in place, that the apartment was wired to one amperage (load) that is below the current one"

But don't make the mistake of thinking that if you add up the total of all the breakers in the box that this is the amount of the main coming into the unit.

____________________

David Goldsmith
DG Neary Realty

30yrs - in a 1960's building - we added another whole box to handle the increased load for lighting , appliances, etc. (and paid for the additional box with a "hallway contribution" of $3,000 to the hallway renovations (previously planned by the building) which helped bring the wiring up to our apartment(that's in addition to the whole electricians's cost)

Compared to not having enough juice to support your desired lifestyle, it doesn't sound like all that bad a deal. Of course I'm sure at the time you felt like someone's hand was in your pocket.

RE - actually, it felt like extortion, since the hallway renovations had been planned way before.

ph41, this was a 1-BR, not a ph ...

ali r.

Rent_or_Buy, that's not bad. In my closing last month, the buyers made me pay for a remote for the garage door that did not come with the unit. There's a key entry that opens the gate, but they wanted the remote. I just didn't want to deal with it and gave in just like the surround sound and the window treatments. you give a little and don't give yourself a huge headache.

its funny - honestly would have caved -- but my broker found out their lease is up jan 1 and they wanted to do some renovations -- so i came in taking a hard line at closing -- thankfully for me they caved - only regret is that i didnt squeeze the buyers broker --- was going to ask him what he knows -- since technically he works for me he would of had to tell me -- would have squeezed him for info -

"RE - actually, it felt like extortion, since the hallway renovations had been planned way before."

That's what I meant by "I'm sure at the time you felt like someone's hand was in your pocket".

Something to add to this discussion: contracts are usually written so that things are in the same condition that they were at the time of contract signing. People tend to be so worried about saying anything negative about their properties, they almost always fail to disclose any defects. But if you had pointed out to them (or your broker had) that X or Y didn't work before their contract signing, you could have dealt with it THEN. You aren't selling "new construction" where everything is supposed to b e working and in new condition. You are entitled to reasonable "wear and tear". If you told them that outlet wasn't working, and at the walk through it still wasn't working, you are under no obligation to give them a nickel. So when you go to sell something, do your own walk through first, and as part of the contract, include those items which are issues. If the buyer wants a discount because of it, you've got a lot more of an opportunity to deal with it then, rather than when everyone is sitting around a closing table.