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CONFESSION #0895 — POST-CLOSE CATASTROPHE
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
The open house went fine. That's the thing. Went totally fine. Thirty people through, good feedback, offer came in two days later. Closed in 45 days. Everyone happy.
Except three weeks after close the buyer calls me screaming about the basement. Water coming in. Like, a lot of water. And she's saying I should have disclosed, I should have known.
Here's where I messed up. At that open house, some guy asked me if the basement ever got wet and I said no. Just said no. Didn't check with the sellers, didn't look at the disclosure again, just said no because the basement looked dry and I wanted to keep things moving.
Turns out the sellers had disclosed "occasional moisture during heavy rain" on page four of the disclosure packet. Which I had definitely read at some point. Probably.
Remediation cost was around eight grand. My broker covered most of it to make it go away. She didn't yell at me, which was almost worse. Just looked at me for a long time and said "you know what you did."
Yeah. I know what I did.
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Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF FIRST-DEGREE DISCLOSURE NEGLIGENCE WITH AGGRAVATED BASEMENT BETRAYAL AND RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR PAGE FOUR
The Court has reviewed this confession and must pause to collect itself because THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF BEHAVIOR THAT MAKES REGINALD QUESTION EVERYTHING. You stood in that basement, a basement that by your own admission LOOKED dry, and when a civilian asked you a direct question about moisture you just GUESSED. You IMPROVISED. You treated page four of that disclosure packet like it was terms and conditions for a software update, something to scroll past on your way to the good stuff. "Occasional moisture during heavy rain" is not a suggestion, it is not a fun fact, it is a LEGAL DOCUMENT crying out for acknowledgment and you LEFT IT ON READ. The Court once had a similar situation with a crawl space in 2017 and I still wake up thinking about it so do not expect sympathy from this bench. Your broker's silent disappointment was the appropriate sentence because sometimes the absence of yelling IS the yelling, and Reginald knows this intimately from his second marriage. Eight thousand dollars in remediation, your broker's quiet devastation, and the knowledge that you KNEW what you did before anyone told you, that is the trifecta of professional shame and The Court finds it EXACTLY sufficient. Case closed, the Roomba has already left the room.
Page Four Denier
Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.
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