Failing to disclose a faulty toilet to potential buyers could land sellers in nasty trouble

Q. We are planning to sell our home. One of our two toilets backs up about every three or four flushes and floods the floor with yucky water, but two different plumbers that we have hired could not permanently fix the problem. We had a third plumber visit, and he said it’s a complicated issue that would cost about $7,000 to resolve, but we don’t have that kind of money right now.

If we simply sell our home “as-is,” could we avoid our state’s home defect-disclosure laws so we wouldn’t have to tell the buyers about our troublesome toilet?

A. Probably not. You already know about the problem, so the buyer has the right to know about it, too.

Many sellers think they can skirt their state’s defect-disclosure laws by offering their home on an as-is basis, but they’re sadly mistaken.

When a property is marketed as-is, it simply means the seller will not pay for any needed repairs that are discovered while the sale is being finalized or after the transaction has closed — nothing more, nothing less.

The catch, though, is that real estate laws in nearly every state now require sellers to disclose any problems that they already know about — whether they’re willing to pay for the work or not. These laws allow a buyer to adjust their offering price accordingly, even if the buyer wisely chooses to have the property examined by a professional home inspector before the deal is closed or, sometimes, under certain circumstances, long after the title to the home has been transferred.

Either fix your home’s crummy commode now — perhaps the plumber will agree to an installment payment plan — so you can market your home for a better price, or let the buyers know about the problem to reduce the chance that the deal will fall apart or that you’ll get sued later.

If it’s impossible to find a way to pay for the $7,000 in repairs now, be willing to accept a slightly lower sale price or offer to give the buyers a $7,000 credit from the sale proceeds to do the work themselves after they move in.

REAL ESTATE TRIVIA

The American Society of Home Inspectors states that the most common signs of a plumbing problem are when water backs up in the sink, shower or toilet, or when residents can smell stinky sewer gas inside the home.

Q. I enjoyed your recent column on some of the less-common abbreviations that real estate salespeople occasionally use in their advertisements. But you left one out that I see in some realty ads and even hear on TV and radio news stories. What does “SRO” mean?

A. It can mean different things to different people. Acronymsandslang.com, a unique online dictionary on the internet, lists a staggering 290 different definitions for the abbreviation or acronym “SRO.”

Of course, on Broadway or at a ballpark, it means that all available seats have been sold out, but that management is still offering to sell tickets to people who are willing to stand throughout the entire performance or game.

I’d rather do that than get a phone call or a visit from a State Revenue Officer, whose primary job is to collect delinquent taxes and can garnish wages or seize property if the bill isn’t paid.

In real estate circles, though, the abbreviation is shorthand for “single-room occupancy.” Sometimes, it’s used by a homeowner who is advertising that he or she has a spare bedroom, finished basement or the like that is available to rent.

Other times, it’s a term used by many cities or other government agencies that refers to a small studio or one-bedroom apartment that is occupied by a single, low-income person — often an elderly individual or someone who might otherwise be living on the streets.

Depending on the area, the government will pay for most or all of the tenant’s rent.

Though the tenants each have a room of their own, they must often share a cooking area and a communal bathroom.

Q. Why do people always seem to call any small boring town that’s out in the middle of nowhere “Podunk?” I have never been there, but it can’t be as bad as some people make it out to be.

A. No one is really sure how Podunk became a place of such ridicule. Few people even know that there are four towns or hamlets named Podunk in the U.S., according to researchers at geotargit.com — one in Connecticut and the others in New York, Vermont and Michigan.

I have been to the one in Connecticut. Famous for its annual Podunk Bluegrass Festival, all of the roughly 3,000 of the town’s residents whom I met were friendly, smart and down to earth.

The name Podunk is derived from the Algonquin Indian words pod (“low”) and unk or ungkone (“beyond,” “farther”) — “the low land beyond.” At barely 200 feet above sea level, the tribe that farmed there eventually became known as the Podunks.

Send questions to David Myers, P.O. Box 4405, Culver City, CA 90231-2960, and we’ll try to respond in a future column.