House Update

Quick recap for those of you who don't know: In March 2012, we bought our first home. In March 2013, we found out the home has significant foundation damage which wasn't disclosed during the selling process. 

We have spent the past 8 months trying to figure out what we can do to remedy this situation. Two foundation repair companies gave us bids to fix our home: $55,000. Yes, I am sad to report I did not accidentally put too many zeroes in that figure. Fifty-five thousand dollars, on top of the 28.5 year mortgage we still owe on. Plus, we have recently found out that these types of repairs will most likely not work on our specific problem. We could hypothetically pay $55k and then have our foundation crumble anyway...and we would be responsible for the full cost of additional repairs. 

We have met with multiple lawyers who have all told us that we have no legal options...or rather, that we can sue if we would like, but we probably won't win. So yeah, no good option there. 

Our latest effort was to contact our mortgage company and see if they could help us. Their best advice was to file this with our home insurance (though a lawyer previously advised us not to file a claim with our homeowners insurance). Additionally, they offered to help us apply for a short sale on the house or to assist us through the foreclosure process. 

I am still trying to contact local contractors to get a bid for them to do the work. 6 months later, we have not received a single bid, so it really feels like this door is closing. It is so tough to distinguish when you are trying to force something that isn't meant to happen and when you need to just be persistent and keep on keeping on. For now, I press on. 

Yes, we can continue to live in the house (as many people have suggested) but there are a few problems with that: 1) The house is getting significantly worse. Cracks are opening up and parts of the house are separating in very obvious ways. The longer we put off a solution, the more severe the problem is becoming. 2) Every payment we make into this house is potentially money down the drain if we can't sell the home and recover the money we have put into it. 3) The weight of this problem is something that we cannot continue to live with for years. The burden is sometimes physically heavy and I don't think it is healthy for us to operate in this stress level long-term. 

We have a couple more people to call to seek their professional advice regarding this situation. It seems we always have one more person to call, so at least we keep finding more options to pursue. They all keep coming back negative, but I will choose to be grateful that we aren't at the end of our rope...yet. 

There is definitely good that has come from this situation: Kory and I have been drawn closer to each other than ever and have been reminded of what is truly important in life (not a house!). My prayer life has improved exponentially, and not only in regards to the house. I have been able to share my faith with others because of this specific trial. Still, would I chose to go through it again for these benefits? Nope. I sure wouldn't. And that just makes me grateful that God is in control and I am not. 

We would certainly appreciate your prayers. We are also open to any advice or ideas you might have for us: there is nothing we won't at least consider at this point.