Simple, Stupid and Easy

I reached out to Brian L. Sirota, Esq. yesterday with a situation and a potential referral. By the way, the title of this post has nothing to do with Brian, it refers to the moral to the story - Brian was awesome and I wanted Active Rain to know it.
I shared the following with Brian; he and the results inspired this post:

Back Story:    

Actual Kitchen

I have first-time-buyers that recently purchased a home, allowed a seller rent back as part of the deal, and took possession July 4, 2022. They didn't start "using" the house right away due to renovations. Now that they have moved in, they claim the dishwasher and disposal do not work and want compensation from the seller.
The disposal is making noise and the dishwasher won't power up.
I ran them through the obvious: reach out to the sellers and politely question them (full denial). Ask them a series of DIY questions and offer solutions by email, no repairs accomplished.

The problem is the seller moved out 5 weeks ago and were given back their security deposit by the buyers - at that point by default the sellers confirmed "the house was fine."
It feels like they waited too long to make this an issue, but this exceeds my license for any further advise.

Brian was kind enough to respond and confirm my exact advice and suspicions that I shared with my clients.

He suggested my clients file a small claims case, provided they continue to believe they have a case.   However, he did not encourage it based on the facts I provided. I agreed and already shared with my buyers - "you've waited too long and quite frankly have provided too much leverage for the sellers case."

The time lapse before discovering the appliances were not working, and the return of the security deposit from the short-term lease, make for a difficult case.  Combine this with the home inspection that did not flag any issues, and the case becomes even more challenging.

Solution and Moral To The Story:

Brian's advice was precisely the suspicions I had shared with my clients, but I didn't want to leave them in the lurch, so I popped by their home  yesterday and said I'd take a look. I'm not a repairman but 34 years of "landlording" has taught me a thing or two in the DIY Dept.

My grandfather taught me decades ago; "start with the simple solutions because 90% of the time it's a stupid problem with an easy fix" and then work your way out to the more complicated ones"-or call the professional. I left a hero and no further talk of legal action needed.