We bought our house a couple of years ago. But two distinct issues arose before and after construction of our new garage this past summer which I found very disturbing.
The first issue came while purchasing the house. We were told that we didn’t have to get a mortgage survey by our lender, because it was an older established neighborhood. Over a year later, when we began construction of our garage, we did have a survey done. It turns out that one corner of the existing 45 year old house was a little over a foot over the front setback, necessitating a variance which delayed the construction of my garage by about five months and cost over a thousand more dollars in extra expenses.
After construction completed on our garage we noticed water building up in the back yard. We thought that perhaps something happened during construction that severed the sewer line. After some investigating we discovered that we were not connected to the county sewer lines at all, but have a SEPTIC TANK. We were then were forced to connect to county sewer because the septic tank had numerous problems. At the time when we bought the house we were presented by the realtor with a list of average prices for utilities that was made up by the owner. One of these was WATER & SEWER, with associated average monthly prices. This and the monthly bill we received by our locality with a line item sewer were all that we needed to believe that we were connected to the county sewer. Of course we were wrong.
I believe we did our due diligence on this house. We went over everything and we hired a lawyer and a home inspector. I know that a house has certain expenses and believe me we have shared quite a few but these expenses, in my mind, were caused by information being willfully withheld and possibly even shear deceit and I do not believe that I should have to swallow these costs.
I would appreciate any advice on this issue and I am specifically wondering if I have cause to move forward with legal action. We live in Virginia.

