Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cassie Barron "Attorney at Law": Putting on my Lawyer Pants and Mastering Legal Jargon

New words I learned the true meaning of this week: mitigation, abatement, friable, non-friable, encapsulated, and probably a bunch more that I'm not thinking of right now...

After the last post about all of the "deterring" inspection results and newly found concerns, we asked for a 3 day inspection period extension in which we had to schedule and complete 3 more contractor inspections to obtain written quotes and estimates for the scope of work they found. I spent hours on the phone finding, scheduling, and holding in depth discussions with plumbers, electricians, structural engineers, and mitigation specialists, while trying to entertain and keep fed our 2-year-old daughter, as well as lugging her out to meet the contractors at the house. It was a juggling act, and time was of the essence.

Once we received all of the results it was time to quickly get down to business and decide what exactly we were going to request from the seller in order to move forward with purchasing this home. Again, we spent hours putting everything into a spreadsheet, seeking the advice of our realtor and attorney, and debating what line items we were going to present to the sellers for reimbursement and/or credit.

Our lawyer acted ask if we were slightly crazy for what we were proposing, and did not seem optimistic that the sellers would see our side of things. I felt strongly that what we were asking for was fair and these were true numbers that we would have to fork up once the house was in our hands. So, I took it upon myself to type up a word document that explained, in my most legally intelligent verbiage, the results of our inspections and what we were asking for on each issue and why, and sent it to our lawyer so that they could put their lawyer-y spin on it.

Apparently, I really got in touch with my inner lawyer self, and mastered some major legal jargon, because our attorney responded saying they were just going to use my document verbatim to send over to the sellers' attorney. This made me really nervous, seeing that I did not expect my amateur write-up to be the legal manuscript asking for about $20,000 in credit... that would make or break this entire deal.

We were pretty pleased when the sellers agreed to give credit on 5 out of 7 line items. Our attorney said he was a little shocked that they had responded so reasonably to our request. There were 2 line items they marked as "not agreed"and their attorney expressed their reasoning by throwing some new legal jargon at us, which I was not familiar with. But Google is a wonderful thing, and within a couple of hours I had schooled myself on this new vocabulary, and I determined that his reasoning was simply incorrect. Again, I used my new found verbiage and typed up my most eloquent response.

I won't bore you with all 7 line items, but here is the back-and-forth on the interior asbestos issue: 

Me: "We had the home tested by the Environmental Consulting Group, Inc. for asbestos-containing materials (ACMs). Results show several materials are positive for ACMs. For detailed documentation see attached document: “REVISED Asbestos Material Testing Report” 

The state of Illinois labels Asbestos as a hazardous material and therefore, the removal and disposal of asbestos from the home requires an Illinois Department of Public Health licensed/insured worker. 

Professional estimate for the removal and disposal of the ACMs estimate is based on the inspection results. For detailed documentation see attached document: “Bluestone interior asbestos quote”." 

Response from Sellers' Attorney: "Not agreed. The asbestos is contained in the floor tiles and linoleum. It is embedded and non-friable. The only abatement cost would be for the disposal of the material. My clients offer a partial credit in this regard." 

Me (back to Seller's Attorney): "We have confirmed that currently Cook County does not distinguish between friable and non-friable ACMs. A permit is required for both removal and disposal of both friable and non-friable asbestos containing materials in Cook County. Therefore, a licensed asbestos removal contractor is needed for labor, removal, clean up, disposal, and air-quality control. 

We had positive tests for floor tile, linoleum and mastic (adhesive). Linoleum is not considered non-friable because it contains friable paper backing. In either case it is not advised to remove any of the asbestos containing material on our own.

Both licensed companies we spoke with will not cooperate with clean up or disposal of asbestos waste if they did not perform the labor due to liability issues.

We have received two quotes from Illinois-licensed asbestos removal contractors. We stand firm on our estimated cost for the labor, removal, clean up, disposal, and air-quality control from a licensed contractor."

The seller agreed to the full interior asbestos credit we requested. And that's how it's done. :)

In the end the seller agreed to give us about 75% of the total credit we asked for combined on all 7 line items. This was a relatively satisfying result and we decided it was agreeable to move forward with purchasing the home.

Cassie Barron "Attorney at Law"

1 comment:

  1. You are impressive Cassie. I just read some other posts too.. LOVE the skeleton keys, and admire your bravery for not letting a ghost intimidate you!!!

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