Tiaza and Sue:
For clarification, the house closed. The entire process from initial offer to closing took about 2 weeks. The agent is the broker. He owns his own company and was also our lender. Because he was our lender, he could rush the financing in order to close so quickly. My husband and I looked for the agreements you mentioned. We do not have a copy of any of the following: the Buyer Broker Agreement, the Statewide Buyer's Inspection Advisory, the Buyer's Inspection Advisory, or the Residential Purchase Agreement. We don't think we ever had those in our possession. We don't know if we signed any of them other than the RPA. We do have a copy of the seller's disclosure. The seller did not disclose many of the problems. One of my questions was whether the broker had any responsibility in following up on that. We do know we never got a copy of the offer or counter offers. That was one of the time-line problems. The counter offer specified the day of contingency expiration. I thought it was a day later than it was. Perhaps if we had had a copy to reread, we may have realized that. The agent came to our home to do the paperwork and no copy machine being available, we never got copies. That is one of the things I want to request from him. I have not discussed "blame" with the agent. I wanted to know what his responsibilities were first before I discussed it with him. That is why I asked the question, "Where can I get a copy of the responsibilities?" I wish I had known that we could have gotten out of the contract up until the day of escrow closing. Up until closing, I repeatedly discussed with the broker my concerns about the electrical. I also told him I had thought the contingency expired a day later than it did. He never once told us we could get back out. Since escrow closed and he delivered the keys to us, I have only had one conversation with him. I called to report we were discovering problems with the house. He referred me to use the home warranty he bought us. The inspector did do things wrong, he missed many problems that were not electrical. That is why he apologized. We are grateful he is not shirking his responsibility for those missed items and hope his insurance will cover their repair. He asked us to get contractor's bids for those items. Many of them could be costly repairs. What I am most concerned about is the safety issue. We have had 4 electricians out to the house. We were prepared to pay for repair of the electrical problems identified by the inspector and have. The real issue is that there are many more, some of which are fire hazards and are not easily found. When the home inspector reinspected per our request, he found another live wire in the attic. That was after the close of escrow, after 4 electricians had been out to inspect the home. One question I had was whether the broker who bought the warranty for us should advocate for us with that warranty company. We have called them multiple times, requested supervisors, etc. to no avail. Since it needed to be fixed for functional use and safety, we paid our own electrician for repairs. We thought we had already taken care of the safety issue. Now we realize the insulation in the attic was hiding live wires, spliced wires, etc. So, we need to decide what to do to be able to have a safe home. Our daughter lives in this home, not us. Of course, we are worried.

Tiaza is correct about the buyer broker agreement. What you will find in that agreement, though, may disappoint you with reference to a realtor's responsibility. It clearly states that a realtor is not an expert and you are advised to seek the assistance of experts during your inspections. You also probably signed a Statewide Buyers Inspection Advisory, and a Buyer's Inspection Advisory, as well as initialed on a page in the Residential Purchase Agreement that you are responsible to get all necessary inspections to understand the condition of the home.

I have been through the court systems, as a buyer, and do not recommend that you immediately hire an attorney. (Go ahead, and expect a big bill whether you win or lose.) And while contacting an attorney will clarify your legal rights, spend the time educating yourself on other items as well. Hopefully this perspective might be more helpful in what I'm reading from you here.....
It doesn't sound like the home inspector did anything wrong. His findings suggested that you obtain an electrician to further inspect something. So why are you implying a 'blame' that the realtor is somehow to blame on who the inspector was, or that the home inspector did something wrong? The realtor should not have offered any opinion on 'easy to fix' because they aren't qualified to make that judgement. I don't understand why the home inspector apologized,
The last day you can withdraw from an offer is the day you go to signing. If you are referring to the last day of the inspection period, without having signed a release of contingencies, your deposit was still possibly refundable. There was never a time you couldn't withdraw your offer. The risk was only the amount of your deposit.
Your agent might be distancing himself, because you are quick to place blame? It isn't the right thing to do, but it's often human nature when someone is blaming everyone else for their difficulty as you seem to be doing. YOU ARE NOT IN CONTRACT WITH THE AGENT, you are in contract with the broker. The best way to resolve this is through mediation, but first, call and sit to discuss this with the broker.
You don't mention if you closed on this house. If so, you signed documents that said that you were advised to get all the inspections that were needed to understand the condition of the home, and that based on that, you were buying the house 'as is'. You probably signed many documents that you didn't really read thoroughly but trusted your agent that wherever they said to sign, you did. Unfortunately in a California court, once you sign, you're responsible for what you signed.
You say your home is not safe due to electrical issues. Please quantify this better, and have this information available when discussing with the broker.
My suggestion is the following-
If you have already moved into the house, then it's yours. If you haven't, stop the proceedings immediately.
If it's yours, quantify the amount of repair required. Contact an electrician for the inspection and document it. Get more than one bid.
Contact the broker and sit down to meet with them. I would expect that they're more than willing to help you resolve this. If this is a major expense, and they determine some blame in the process, they might be able to compensate you in resolving this. Most have errors and omission insurance and might be able to place a claim on that, IF they have some responsibility in the situation.
If you have no resolution, you can request mediation through the court system. This is spelled out in your buyer broker agreement. THEN you can contact an attorney to assist in mediation, or then into arbitration.
Your ultimate goal, I would suspect, is to get the home corrected for the electrical problems. Hopefully this approach would yield faster results than just hiring an attorney.

Good luck!

Hi Mitzi,

I am so sorry to hear about your situation. You can find a detailed description of the responsibilities of your agent contained within the contracts you signed with then. The Buyer Broker agreement spells out the duties and responsibilities your agent owes to you and you owe to them and the last two pages of the Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA) entitled the Buyer Inspection Advisory (BIA) really spells things out.

I am in no way saying that this will absolve anyone from trying to help you. I would suggest you call the broker for your representative's office and discuss your situation and see what remedy might be available to you.

Unfortunately, I hate to say that if you are not able to come to some sort of agreement you should consider consulting a lawyer.

Good luck with your situation. I will hold good thoughts for you and sincerely hope that everyone involved does right by you.

Take care,

Tisza Major-Posner, Realtor, IVPG Realty (909) 837-8922