chuckd said:

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No. And I'm not defending a position other than that this was an act of God that could not have been planned for. I can go searching for other dams across Texas in the same situation. But I don't blame developers because it's not their job to set the boundaries for what is considered acceptable risk. That is on the county floodplain administrators, the entities that control the dams, FEMA, etc. to set those boundaries and permit development. In general, that risk should be below 1% likelihood every year. In some areas, the precipitation from Harvey was a 0.0025% likelihood.

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Do you worship money and profits?

If you don't see the injustice here, I dunno what to tell you.

Perhaps take another look at your moral compass.


Oh, " It's not my job...." what an out. A sellout's position.

Wait, who exactly wronged whom? There was a catastrophic storm. That's what insurance is for.

Frok said:

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Wait, who exactly wronged whom? There was a catastrophic storm. That's what insurance is for.

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I don't think it's been stated on this thread, but the authorities that approved the developments put a big note on the front page that stated it was in the flood pool. It wasn't up to the authority to deny construction. It was up to the developer to either raise the properties out of the flood pool or disclose to the buyers that it was in the flood pool. The developers were given the information. They chose to hide that from the buyers. With all the little shiat you can get sued for when selling a house, that it's hard to believe something as egregious as this would not just be unethical, but illegal as well. The courts will decide, but I'd be surprised if they found no liability apart from the buyers.

dds08 said:

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chuckd said:

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No. And I'm not defending a position other than that this was an act of God that could not have been planned for. I can go searching for other dams across Texas in the same situation. But I don't blame developers because it's not their job to set the boundaries for what is considered acceptable risk. That is on the county floodplain administrators, the entities that control the dams, FEMA, etc. to set those boundaries and permit development. In general, that risk should be below 1% likelihood every year. In some areas, the precipitation from Harvey was a 0.0025% likelihood.

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Do you worship money and profits?

If you don't see the injustice here, I dunno what to tell you.

Perhaps take another look at your moral compass.


Oh, " It's not my job...." what an out. A sellout's position.

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No need for personal attacks.

Quote:

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Wait, who exactly wronged whom? There was a catastrophic storm. That's what insurance is for.

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What kind of insurance would that be? Flood policies don't have any loss of use coverage. We're $14,000 into extra rent already, with more on the way. The adjuster's estimate was about 25% lower than the actual repair costs, so there's another $30K. Flood policies don't offer replacement cost coverage on contents either. So, even with insurance it's easily a $50K hit. A flood policy is way better than nothing, but it's nowhere near as good as homeowner's insurance.

chuckd said:

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No. And I'm not defending a position other than that this was an act of God that could not have been planned for. I can go searching for other dams across Texas in the same situation. But I don't blame developers because it's not their job to set the boundaries for what is considered acceptable risk. That is on the county floodplain administrators, the entities that control the dams, FEMA, etc. to set those boundaries and permit development. In general, that risk should be below 1% likelihood every year. In some areas, the precipitation from Harvey was a 0.0025% likelihood.

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How come the developers weren't omniscient!!??!!

Why didn't God tell everyone about the flood pools!?!?

Win At Life said:

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Frok said:

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Wait, who exactly wronged whom? There was a catastrophic storm. That's what insurance is for.

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I don't think it's been stated on this thread, but the authorities that approved the developments put a big note on the front page that stated it was in the flood pool. It wasn't up to the authority to deny construction. It was up to the developer to either raise the properties out of the flood pool or disclose to the buyers that it was in the flood pool. The developers were given the information. They chose to hide that from the buyers. With all the little shiat you can get sued for when selling a house, that it's hard to believe something as egregious as this would not just be unethical, but illegal as well. The courts will decide, but I'd be surprised if they found no liability apart from the buyers.

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Didn't buyers who financed get an appraisal? Why didn't the appraiser note it? Can we sue them too? If they stated in the appraisal that they aren't experts, who can we sue because the buyer didn't read it and get their own expert to opine on flood pools? If the subdivision was built by an unrelated entity to the developer, maybe the developer did disclose. Let's sue the builder too! Sue everybody!!

Who was Noah's lawyer? We need them on retainer!

This is Upper Brushy Creek WCID Dam #12. Zone AE in light blue. Anybody see a problem?

Dam #14

I do not (to either question).

If you build a house and put a $5 regular breaker where a $40 AFCI breaker should go, sell the house without making that disclosure and the house burns down because of it, you will most definitely be sued; and probably lose. How is it that something so trivial is considered culpable by the builder where this major "oversight " is not. One of these things is not like the other.

Win At Life said:

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If you build a house and put a $5 regular breaker where a $40 AFCI breaker should go, sell the house without making that disclosure and the house burns down because of it, you will most definitely be sued; and probably lose. How is it that something so trivial is considered culpable by the builder where this major "oversight " is not. One of these things is not like the other.

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AFCI breakers are a recent addition to the 2014 NEC. What if you had a panel installed in 2013 in full compliance with the 2011 NEC and did not disclose to the buyer that the breakers are not up to the [current year] code? Should you be sued?

I also heard that the disclosure was included in the documents, albeit in fine print. Is this not true?

chuckd said:

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Win At Life said:

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If you build a house and put a $5 regular breaker where a $40 AFCI breaker should go, sell the house without making that disclosure and the house burns down because of it, you will most definitely be sued; and probably lose. How is it that something so trivial is considered culpable by the builder where this major "oversight " is not. One of these things is not like the other.

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AFCI breakers are a recent addition to the 2014 NEC. What if you had a panel installed in 2013 in full compliance with the 2011 NEC and did not disclose to the buyer that the breakers are not up to the [current year] code? Should you be sued?

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The appraiser also said they aren't a licensed home inspector which the buyer also should have hired. My house was built in the 1960s. Is it reasonable for me to disclose everything that's happened since then and keep up with all code changes?

WaL- You're illustrating my point. There are bounds to what is reasonable. We make decisions based on probability all the time. A flood pool is not treated like a flood plain and this is really hindsight driving the criticism.

You are creating a straw man argument that I never suggested. I never suggested a 1960 home built to 1960 information needs to be changed to current codes. Nobody ever said that.

What I am saying is a home built needs to comply with the regulations at the time it was built. And it seems odd to me that building a house with accidental risk of fire will definitely be considered a liability on the home builder, while one built off known warning of flood risk is exempt.

For those houses that have been bought and sold multiple time is another issue, but I'm sure there is some legal precedence in those cases.

Win At Life said:

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You are creating a straw man argument that I never suggested. I never suggested a 1960 home built to 1960 information needs to be changed to current codes. Nobody ever said that.

What I am saying is a home built needs to comply with the regulations at the time it was built. And it seems odd to me that building a house with accidental risk of fire will definitely be considered a liability on the home builder, while one built off known warning of flood risk is exempt.

For those houses that have been bought and sold multiple time is another issue, but I'm sure there is some legal precedence in those cases.

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Guy who introduced argument about something that violates current code accuses someone else of a straw man?

That's Chuck's point (and RA's indirectly). Today, flood pool might be good to add to all disclosures. Yesterday it wasn't relevant. Conversely, one might judge a 500 year flood to be so little risk as to think it irrelevant and just accept a bad loss, taking the chance that it'll happen to someone else, or never as developed in current capacity.

It isn't necessarily a moral decision. It's not immoral to design the community and drainage the way they did, as there's wasn't precedent for doing it otherwise. Nor was it immoral to assume someone would have flood insurance or be able to fix the house if something happened.

a lot of misinformation in this thread