Get a C.L.U.E. About the House You Are About to Purchase!
As you prepare to purchase your next home, wouldn't you want to know as much about that home as possible? Would you want to know if the previous owners had filed insurance claims? If your answers are YES!, then read on.
Ask the sellers to provide you with a C.L.U.E. report on the house. C.L.U.E. is the acronym for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. It is a nationwide claims database and provides information on the claims history of the house going back five (sometimes seven) years. You can make the sale of the house contingent on the delivery of the report. Here in Texas, you can insist on disclosure/delivery within the option period.
Several years ago, I had clients who made an offer on a home. The seller did disclose in the Seller Disclosure Notice that he HAD received funds from his insurance company for hail damage to the roof and he did NOT repair or replace the roof. The buyers' inspector noted the damage in the inspection report, yet the seller still did not want to replace the roof. The house was uninsurable. My clients were using a VA loan to purchase the house and the VA appraiser made a new roof a requirement to close. Although we knew about the damage to the roof, we did not know when the claim was filed or how much the seller received.
As you can see in the image above, the sellers received two checks, one for over $6,000 and the other for over $5,000 for hail damages in 2011.
This seller was honest in disclosing that he pocketed the insurance money. Will the next seller "forget" to disclose something? Find out with a C.L.U.E report.
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