selling house - can't get insurance need to close

[edarling]

Hi. My family built a new home about 3 miles from our old home. We closed the pool at the old house and put the house on the market in October. We moved in Feb, and the old house is still for sale.

I heard from my home owners insurance that I will be cancelled on June 30, and after running around for a few weeks, I was able to get vacant home insurance for an astromonical 5K+ a year. The original company would not provide liability insurance because of the pool, but we managed to find some for another 700+ annually.

I opened the pool in the spring because the realtor really wanted people to see that it works. It was a very easy open, and was within one vacuum of being swimmable. The open house went fine.

Here is my issue. I am too busy to run down the street to keep up with the pool, so when I sent my DH and DD down on their way to an errand, they reported cloudiness and added a lot of CL. I went down 4 days later, and it was still cloudy and now getting green.

I added lots more CL and tried to vac to waste, to no result. It just was taking too much time to fix it, and my DE filter required constant monitoring with this situation in the past. The filter would clog so quickly, then I had to replace the DE and unsrew those 18 annoying bolts to clean the fingers!

So, I just want to close the pool in its present condition. At this point in the summer, there will not be new owners to Auguset at the earliest. I don't see the pool being opened again this year.

After all that, here is my question. How bad is it to just cover a green mess? I will lower the water under the returns, while vacuuming to waste. That should help a bit, but it will still be greenish.

I just don't have the time to do the BBB on a house I don't live at. I tried LOTS of CL, but apparently not enough. My filter has no timer, which makes it harder. I went down and a storm threw the breaker so the pump stopped. Unless I am risking ruining the liner (it really needs a new one anyway), I am closing.

Thanks for reading my rant/vent. I just don't want to spend the 1-2 hours to close even, but it looks so bad for people looking to buy at least the safety cover looks nice. And may save me some insurance money!

This was more of an info for those moving. Good luck with the sale and I hope you never have to buy vacant home insurance!

- betty

[Poconos]

Hey, if venting and ranting on this forum makes you feel better then the forum has served a purpose. I had to do that vacant house insurance once but the premium wasn't that astronomical, something like $1600 a year on a $160K home, no pool. But then again that was 13 years ago. I would think being only 3 miles from the old place you could do something to satisfy the requirements of being there and avoiding the extra premium but I'm no insurance person or lawyer. Hope it sells fast.

On the pool. Assuming all the equipment can be made functional by just filling to the right level, I'd be tempted to do just as you're doing. Let it go green. Depending on who eventually buys the place, if they're familiar with pools then they know it's no big deal. If they're not familiar maybe you could put it in the contract that you'll walk them through the cleanup to get them started. I think any reasonable person would understand your situation. You said it needs a new liner. What is wrong with the present one? Just old, faded, tearing? That could change the suggestion.
Keep us posted.
Al

[cleancloths]

Why not just sleep there one day a week - its close enough and might save you a fortune, enough to pay someone to fix your pool problems :)

[AnnaK]

That is an excellent suggestion!

I was an Underwriting Manager for a national insurance company for a while and know a little bit about personal property insurance. By moving in a very few items of furnishings, a place to sleep and minimal equipment to prepare and eat a meal, and by spending one night in each 30 day period at the house, you change its classification from "vacant" to "unoccupied". This can make a huge difference in coverage and premium.

[edarling]

Sunday, I managed to close the filter and returns after lowering the water. You don't want to know what a bullfrog looks like after going through the skimmer to the filter - I was wondering where thay guy went when I was lowering the water, and I eventually found him in the filter basket - YUCK! I will never take the skimmer basket out early again - I figured emptying to waste and no leaves on top would be fine. I can't do the cover myself, so the pool store guys came to do that Monday.

I managaged to break one of the very brittle connectors that goes from the filter to the lines. One more thing going wrong, but it is a very small thing to fix. For some reason I couldn't loosen the outer ring of a larger valve, and the entire valve turned pulling the small line out from the valve connection.

I will ask about 'unoccupied' v. 'vacant'. I had to remove all the furniture after moving, since I then spent money on painters and new carpet in all the bedrooms, so it would be difficult to move stuff back. My disabled son lived in the master bedroom there and it was a HUGE mess. Wheelchair and hospital bed scrapped up all the white trim and doors and the carpet was long replaced by press-on vynal tiles that no longer had finish on them. that room and all the others to a much lesser extent had to be fixed up.

Not that it is helping the sale. 6K on updates (after already doing 3K in hardwood refinish and my own painting of common rooms), and lowering price 15K is not making me happy. July is month 4 of 2 mortgages :(

Thanks for pool advice too, guys. Liner is old, coming off a bit in one corner, has had some leaks that patched well, and is very faded. We hung in there with it, but every year I say NEXT YEAR is when it will be replaced.

On the positive side, we are building a new pool at the new house - salt water system - so far so good. I will try to take more photos and post, particularly the cool lift I just bought for my son so he can use the pool too.

- betty

[PoolDoc]

You might want to look at installing a salt system on that pool -- it's really hard to maintain a pool that you don't check regularly. No, actually, it's impossible.

But having a salt system would make it much easier.

Over the years, what I've heard from realtors suggests that pools kill sales far more often then they help them. And, a messed up pool is a house sale killer. So, investing in a salt system would not be recoverable $$'s . . . but it might keep you from losing a sale, and having to lower the house price again.

Ben