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[Guest]

Does anyone have any experience in this situation. The seller listed their sq footage of the house 237 sq feet more than the listed price *about a 15% difference). I only found this out once the appraisial came back a few days ago. Does anyone know what my legal rights are? I plan to speak to my attorney but also wanted to get a perspective here.

LESSON IF YOU ARE PURCHASING A HOME; Put in the P&S that the sq footage listed and sq footage appraisial must be less than 5% differnence. If over 5% you are able to recoup all monies and walk away from the deal. Any thoughts on my situation? I will report back on what my attorney says.

[Brian C]

Have you found out how living space is actually counted by the sellers? I hope they realized that the space must be:

Intended for human occupancy.
Heated by a conventional, permanent heating system.
Have walls, floors and ceilings of materials generally accepted for interior construction.
Be directly accessible from another finished area. That means a finished room accessed through any unfinished space cannot be counted as finished square feet.

And how does the Sq/ft match the public records? Did they perform any non-permitted additions to the property?

Had a similar issue with a condo that I put an offer on. My offer was based on the livable space and not including the "roughed-in" basement. After my attorney saw the listing, he contacted the MAR and it was pulled till it was corrected. The listing ended up selling for 25% off the original price.

[Guest]

The reason for the mismatch is due to the builder measures his sq footage from stud to stud as opposed from wall to wall. Something I have never heard of before and IMO is quite misleading unless this is identified up front prior to placing an offer or even as much as up front on the first walk through of the house.

Legally I could have gotten out of the P&S since this was never disclosed to me AND I have emails from several people from the builder side telling me the incorrect sq footage the way most homes are sold. The key is most homes are sold per sq footage from wall to wall, not stud to stud, so this was out of the ordinary therefore the build was obligated to disclose this is how his product is beng advertised or sold since it was out of the norm. He could have fought me if I decided to get out of the P&S but would most likely have lost according to my attorney. Lesson learned for me and anyone else out thre comparing sq footage from one house to the next. Hope this helps.