Today, I need to start looking into insurance. The property was built in 1962. I was able to find a website to look up construction permits and discovered that the roof was last updated in 1994. Ohhhhhhh. Being in Florida, I am amazed the roof made it unscathed through the 2005 hurricane onslaught. Thanks to my own insurance debacles on the first house, I know what the insurance company wants.
Most importantly, you need to have “wind mitigation” features on your roof. This is interesting stuff. Did you know roofs were just set down on top of structures? I mean, they were unattached. So having your roof blown off in a hurricane? Completely possible. One wind mitigation feature is having metal straps physically hold the roof to the rest of the building. The other feature is that the nailing pattern of the shingles is something like less than 4 inches. If your roof was done after 2001, you have these features because it was a part of the building code. This roof from 1994? Not so likely.
Knowing this, what’s going to happen? I can’t buy the house unless it’s insured. I can’t insure the house unless the roof is replaced. I can’t replace the roof until I own the house. This is probably going to be my major question to the insurance company.
Well, I didn’t ask about that. I just got a quote. They took the property address and said insurance would be in the range of $771-1050/yr. Once I get the closing date, I will need to call them back and actually create the policy.
Regardless, I did spot what seemed to be a water/mold spot in the ceiling of one room, so the roof is going to have to be redone anyway. The inspection will determine how badly. If I remember correctly, after the sales contract is accepted, I have 10 days to have an inspection done. Since this is a foreclosure, the outcome of the inspection won’t have any bearing on the sale. Well, I mean I can still pull out if the inspection is disastrous, but it’s not like I can tell the bank: you need to fix this as a condition of the sale. That will result in a big, bank-sized middle finger stuffed in my face.
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