How did a "buyer beware" issue next door come to affect us? I explained it in a post about a 65-year-old woman named Vinnie Orene Fennell, who lives in Chickasaw, Alabama:
Fennell says a realtor falsely assured her that the house already had been inspected, so Fennell went ahead and closed on the purchase. She then discovered rotted flooring, a leaky roof, and faulty wiring.
This story hits home here at Legal Schnauzer because I've long suspected that Mike McGarity, my new neighbor in 1998, might have been unhappy with something about his house, leading to major legal headaches for my wife and me. I know the house had problems with water coming in the basement before McGarity bought it. The previous owner had a B-Dry System installed in an effort to address the problem, but I wonder if it was truly fixed.
Evidence in the discovery process of the bogus lawsuit McGarity filed against me indicated that he had neither an inspection nor a survey performed on the house prior to purchase. As the real-estate expert notes above, that is just asking for trouble in Alabama--buyer beware!
We're not sure about all the factors driving the nuttiness we've experienced from next door. But consider the legal possibilities:
If water still was coming in the basement when McGarity bought it, would that qualify as a health or safety issue that could expose the seller to major liability? I think a good lawyer might have been able to make that case. In other words, I think McGarity might have had a legitimate case against the seller. But it seems someone steered him toward becoming angry at, and eventually suing, me--someone he most definitely did not have a case against.
What did this accomplish? If my theory is correct, it protected the seller, who was Fred Yancey, football coach at Briarwood Christian School, a ministry of Briarwood Presbyterian Church. We already have noted the strong ties that key figures in McGarity's lawsuit against me have to Briarwood. And we have noted Briarwood's involvement in seeing that the real-estate transaction with McGarity was done quickly--and possibly recklessly.
Is it possible that Briarwood faced serious liability had McGarity sued them for structural problems with his house? That question remains unclear. But this much is clear: He never had a case against me, but his lawyer and a Shelby County judge let the case unlawfully go on anyway.
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