Fort Myers home a house of horrors

The house on Aqua Lane had character. That’s how Patricia Musacchio described it. She fell in love with it, putting in an offer after just one walk through with her real estate agent.

The home was in a great neighborhood. It sat on almost one half acre just west of McGregor Boulevard on a street with a river view.

Given that the prices had about bottomed out at the end of 2011, the three-bedroom, three-bathroom home was a bargain at $227,500.

“It was my dream home,” Musacchio said.

Two months ago that dream home was sold in a foreclosure auction.

“I lost everything,” and was lied to, cheated and taken advantage of along the way, the 43-year-old woman said, holding back tears. “And every person from the attorneys to the previous home owner to the bank to the insurance company to the home inspector, everyone got away with it. I truly believed the system would come through for me. It should be buyer beware. We really are not protected.”

Yet, her first attorney, Mark Steinberg said, “She did everything she could do to protect herself.”

Steinberg said the seller’s disclosures – whether intentional or not – didn’t cite the numerous problems with the home. The roof – advertised as new in 2010 – was not; it had simply been coated and had numerous leaks. The home was also so mold infested that less than three months after closing on the deal, Musacchio had to move out.

When you find out problems weren’t disclosed your recourse is to go after the seller, Steinberg said. Many of the people selling are retired so you won’t get much from them. And even though they may have received money from the sale, it’s a protected homestead and they can’t be forced to sell to satisfy a judgment.

In this case the seller, Bernice Swartz, was a schoolteacher. Swartz said she “did everything right,” but didn’t want to discuss the case. She settled her lawsuit with Musacchio paying her $4,500, which Musacchio said went to pay a second lawyer she hired.

Musacchio also paid for a home inspector. But he failed to uncover the problems with the home.

Home inspectors aren’t required to carry errors and omission insurance, Steinberg said. And the contract you sign protects them. In the case of Steve Pelle, who performed the inspection of Musacchio’s former home, Pelle’s liability was limited to the cost of the inspection according to his contract.

Pelle, however paid Musacchio $15,000 after she sued him. Pelle contends that if it had gone to trial, “we would have won.” He settled just to put a stop to the expensive, protracted litigation.

The house had been inspected once before for a Fort Myers couple who had put a $10,000 deposit on it. The inspector’s findings killed the deal.

The earlier inspection was done by Fred Sylvester, who owns Accredited Building Consultants in Fort Myers. Sylvester’s report was completed five months prior to Pelle’s.

Sylvester said the house had a lot of mold and he was surprised Pelle, who he said is a good inspector, missed it.

Pelle did have a sentence, buried in a long paragraph on the first page of his report, advising Musacchio to get the home mold tested. He also stated there were no permits pulled for any of the work done on the house.

If there had been a new roof, as advertised, certainly there would have been a permit. And if she had carefully read the report she would have also seen the mold testing recommendation.

Musacchio said when she talked to Pelle after the inspection was completed, “He never spoke about mold. He didn’t tell me to get a mold sample. Our discussion about surface mold was about 20 seconds.” The “surface mold,” Pelle told her, was likely due to improper drainage from a flower bed. “He glossed over and said it was nothing to worry about.”

She asked the seller to fix a few of the things Pelle said needed attention. The seller hired an unlicensed contractor who did the work, according to the court records. (Hundreds of pages of depositions, case files, closing documents and inspections are available at news-press.com).

Pelle emailed the report to Musacchio, but she didn’t read it, she said, because given her discussions with him, there was nothing to worry about.

That turned out to not be true. The house was a disaster as the mold inspector and a third house inspector found.

The flooring and about three-quarters of the drywall in the house had to be removed, Musacchio said. The roof leaked and her insurance company refused to cover the damage. Meanwhile, Musacchio had to move out and was paying rent while repairs were being made.

She couldn’t afford repairs and was unable to pay her mortgage. But her bank refused to work with her to modify the loan. When bank started the foreclosure process, Musacchio hired another attorney who she said assured her she wouldn’t lose her home.

But she did. It was sold in an online foreclosure sale on June 11 and bought by an investment company for $241,200. A week ago it went on the market. The asking price is $349,000.

Contact: TellMel@news-press.com; 344-4772; 2442 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Fort Myers, FL 33901. facebook.com/TellMel and Twitter @tellmel