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If you can't find any information on the products or the companies involved in the installation, you might try to find a contractor in your area to give you an estimate of what it will cost to make the repairs.

If the cost is minimal, you might make the repairs yourself. If the costs are large, you will have to decide what to do next.

Your options include complaining about the builder to your local building department with the hope that it can pressure the builder to fix your issues. You can also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. If you do that, at the very least, other buyers will be put on notice that this builder has unresolved complaints against his or her company.

In addition, you can sue the builder. Litigation is expensive, though, and at times it is cheaper to make the repairs than to undertake the cost of litigating a problem. In some states, you may be able to sue the builder in small-claims court.

We bought a home about three weeks ago and did an inspection with my stepfather, who is a contractor. We failed to go into the attic. Two days after closing, I went into the attic. To my surprise, almost all of the rafters and the wood that holds the shingles are severely burned. I have a disclosure statement signed by the seller stating that there was no fire damage. I got another contractor to come out and estimate the cost of the repairs, which he said will probably be about $50,000. What are my options? Who is at fault? What if the sellers don't have the money?

It would be hard for the sellers to deny that they knew the home had a large fire and to say they never went into their own attic. You can probably find evidence that they stored items in the attic and were aware of the problem.

Most states require a seller to disclose to buyers material problems with the home. If your state has a specific reference to the home having been involved in a fire and the sellers failed to disclose it, you have a pretty good case if you sue the sellers for not disclosing this issue.

Seller disclosure laws were designed to give buyers an opportunity to know more about the home, particularly information that is known to the seller but may not be readily known to the buyer.

If your seller disclosure form specifically mentions whether the home was affected by a fire and the sellers failed to disclose it to you, the sellers may be in deep trouble.

However, shame on you for not inspecting the house properly before you closed. Your stepfather may be a contractor, but it doesn't sound like he is a professional or licensed home inspector. A competent home inspector would have easily found this issue and alerted you.

The whole reason to hire a professional home inspector is to avoid the big pitfalls in buying real estate. It's nice to know that seller disclosure laws are out there to protect buyers, but it's much better to have this kind of information ahead of the closing so you can avoid the issues you now face. You may have saved a few hundred bucks by not hiring a professional home inspector, but now you're facing a $50,000 problem.

You should get a second, and maybe even a third, contractor to give you another estimate of what it will take to fix the problem. Prices may vary, and some contractors (especially those whose business is slow) may want to do more work to the home than just fix the problem from the fire.

Finally, when you know what it will cost to make the repairs, you can sit down with a lawyer and decide how to approach the sellers. If the sellers don't have the money to pay for the fix, you'll be left with the bill.

But the sellers may have the money, and your lawyer can advise you of your options. If the sellers have assets, your state laws may let you recover your attorney's fees in connection with suing the sellers for their failure to disclose the problem.

Ilyce R. Glink is an author and nationally syndicated columnist. Her latest book is "100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask." Samuel J. Tamkin is a real estate lawyer in Chicago. If you have questions for them, write Real Estate Matters Syndicate, P.O. Box 366, Glencoe, Ill. 60022, or contact them through Glink's Web sites, http://www.thinkglink.comandhttp://www.expertrealestatetips.net.

© 2008 Ilyce R. Glink and Samuel J. Tamkin

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