Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

What do you make of this...

The house we're in contract on is currently vacant. There is stuff in the house, but the woman who was living there is no longer there.

We went to visit the place on Sunday to make sure the owners closed up the windows before the storm.. We went around back and under the deck there was a window that had cardboard over it. We removed the cardboard to find the glass of one of the basement windows shattered and a large rock was on the floor of the basement. It didnt look like the rock had been flung from the wind because the glass was cleared away from the window as if someone had cleared it away to crawl in through the window. All the lights were out in the place and the basement door was shut and locked (a week prior it was not shut or locked). We did not go into the place obviously because it's not ours yet and we didnt know who could be lurking inside.

Now, we're thinking one of two scenarios:

1. the homeowner lost her key and broke into the house to get a few things out.
2. someone broke in because they knew the hosue has been vacant for a few months.

So my question is... who do we call about this? Is the homeowner responsible for the damages to the window and any inside damage? and do I need to be worried for our safety in this place since it was broken in to?

It's a townhouse in a VERY safe town and neighborhood. I'm kind of shocked at this...

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

i would talk to your lawyer about this

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

Posted by HomeIsWithU

Posted by IansMommy23

i would talk to your lawyer about this

BF called our realtor who said he would call the listing agent, but he didnt sound concerned at all. I'm a little about it.

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

Could it have blew in from the wind?

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

They will def. be responsible for the repairs--on the final walkthrough, if ANYTHING is wrong/broken, etc., they will have to fix or give you the money (on ours one of the bathroom vanities was cracked, and wasn't before, so we got an estimate and they had to give us the money from escrow).

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!

I had a similar experience one week before I closed on my house. We went by to take some measurements, and saw that the basement had been broken into. Nobody was living there at the time (the owner died about a year before we bought it). All the copper piping in the basement was stolen. Apparently that's pretty common in vacant houses. My RE agent and attorney got in touch with the seller's side. Seller was responsible for all repairs prior to closing. It was 7k damage. It pushed our closing back by about a week, but otherwise all was fine.

Re: Someone broke into the basement of the house we're in contract on!