Wanna Pay for a Big Tankload of Someone Else’s Poop?

Septic Tank Sludge

When purchasing a home with a septic system, who should pay to have the contents of the septic tank pumped out so the buyer’s inspector can properly inspect the tank and system?

I’ve written two offers in the past week for homes with septic systems. The septic system has to be pumped out at the time of inspection so that the inspector can properly inspect the tank. On both of these recent offers, I wrote into the contract “Seller to have septic tank pumped at seller’s expense prior to inspection”, and in both instances, the seller responded by refusing to pay for the pumping. These were the first and only two times I’ve had a seller respond in this manner regarding the pumping of a septic system prior to inspection. And they happened two days apart. The market is indeed still very strange!

It costs about $300 to pump out an average septic tank, but if it hasn’t been serviced in a while, or the exact location is unknown (not uncommon in older areas), there can be added expenses related to just finding the buried tank. The older ones especially will often have buried lids and thus require some poking around in the ground with a long skinny rod, and then some digging to locate the lid. That can cost another $125/hr, for the hunting and digging.

So, as a buyer, are you up for paying to hunt down the location of the seller’s septic tank, then paying to have what’s probably many years accumulation of the seller’s septic sludge pumped out and trucked away for him? I’m not. I don’t think it’s reasonable for sellers to expect a buyer to pay those costs. I’d place it in the category of “unjust enrichment”, since the seller is getting a freebie when it would otherwise be his cost as part of normal home ownership.

On one of my deals, the seller came around after I talked a bit more with the agent and requested that it be reconsidered. On the other, the buyer walked away not only over the septic pumping but also other issues about which the seller was unreasonable.

But wait, in a real estate transaction, everything is negotiable isn’t it? What’s unfair about the seller getting the best deal he can for himself?

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Rental Moveout Walk-through in South Austin

Yesterday, September 1st, I walked through a rental property in South Austin that had been vacated the day before. I had my Flip Mino Video Camera with me so I decided to make a short video of the walk-through and share a few things about what I look for when walking a vacant rental property after a tenant move out.

The result is one of the worst videos I’ve ever seen. I have no idea what I’m doing, or how to make a good video. I move too fast, muddle my words, don’t hold the camera steady, etc. I look like a dork and sound stupid. My Inner Critic is telling me to forget it, don’t post it. It’s terrible. Learn some video editing first. But if I wait until I know what I’m doing, it will never happen.

I have the camera mainly for vacations and recording family stuff, but I’ve thought for a while now that it might be fun to start making some video blogs, so this is what I’m starting with, for better or worse.

Here goes …


If you wonder what it’s like being a landlord, you’ll find it interesting (if you just watched the video) that the tenant emailed me the same day, after not following the instructions provided for returning keys, and stated in the email, “I spent a lot of time cleaning the house. I hope it was up to your standards.”

This is why I don’t allow tenants to walk through properties with me, or meet them for move-out walk-throughs. There is too big of a disconnect between what I observe and what a tenant deems to be acceptable. For more on that, read my past article “Why I Never Do Move-out Walk-throughs with Departing Tenants

Back to video making and why I decided to go ahead with my first rough draft right out of the gate.

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Travis County Appaisal District Tax Protest Update 2009

I just received a letter from the Travis County Appraisal District with regard to my upcoming property tax protest hearing. Instead of having the hearing, they want to just offer a lower value now, by mail. If I agree, I can just sign the letter and mail it back. The value will be lowered and I won’t have to attend a hearing for this particular property (though I still have several other over-valued properties awaiting hearings).

The original appraised value for this property, which is a rental house we own in SW Austin, was $196,772. TCAD is offering to drop it to $172,236, which is a value I can live with. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to do that well at the hearing, so I guess I’ll sign the letter and send it back.

Here’s what the letter says. It starts off with:

“Based on an analysis of sales data the indicated value of your property is $172,236”

Translation: “We did a very poor analysis the first time. Because we’ve been deluged with property tax protest requests this year, we decided to do a proper analysis and would now like to set your appraised value at the correct amount instead of incompetently and unfairly over-assessing your value”.

The letter goes on to say:

If you agree with our analysis, we can serve you better by helping you avoid a trip to our offices. If you agree, please sign and date the enclosed Settlement and Waiver of Protest form, and return it to the district using the postage paid envelope…

I’m mailing mine in back in. The county is smart to take this approach, which we are seeing for the first time ever. It’s not that hard to get the assessed value closer than a 15% error, especially in neighborhoods such as the one in which this subject property is located, which are mostly homogeneous, similar homes of similar age and size.

But this raises the question as to how the “analysis” performed by TCAD could been about 15% too high in the first round. Is this an admission that they don’t really try that hard to get the number right in the first place? Well, we already know that they don’t. But I know how to fix that, if I have my way during the next legislative session.

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