Question: How can you determine if the house you're interested in buying has been a former grow-op?
I was interested in a home in Westwood about two years ago on Kirkfield. It had been redone, you could say flipped, and again not well. I watched it and it didn't sell, so I went to the owner, who wasn't living in the home, and offered her the price of the home minus Realtors fees. She declined, stating that the home was now being rented and she would wait for more money. She did get a higher price a year later. Today we met a couple who lives on Kirkfield, we shared the story of how I wanted this home and the first statement she made was; " oh, the grow-op house". I was shocked. How was this not divulged? How can a home be sold after being fixed up without knowing that drugs were grown in that home? As soon as I learned the truth, the gutted basement made sense, yet I wondered about the venting and windows.
A grow-op does significant damage to a home, with enormous amounts of often poorly managed humidity causing mould and rot. Whether a former grow-op is a bad deal depends on the price, the quality of repairs and whether you can overlook the stigma. But either way, you deserve to know the truth about the home's history.
There is a home down the street from my parents in River Heights that has been called the drug house since the '80s. Last year it went on the market and was flipped. The flipped owner was the first one out of the last seven who didn't get his car broken into or stolen and didn't get the home broken into. These issues are never mentioned, yet it was sold again a month ago and the realtor knew that that home was a drug house, yet said nothing.
There is a home in Garden City that sold several months ago that was a grow-op and needed great repair. I am sure that the people or company that bought it to fix it are still working on that home, but I would be curious if the knowledge of the grow-op will be shared with the next owner.
--Lindsay Drummond, e-mail
Answer -- Despite the reality of buyer beware, there is a legal responsibility of vendors, agents, and others involved in the sale of homes to disclose any important information about the condition of the home. This certainly would include information that the home was used to grow illegal marijuana, commonly called a grow-op, or for the manufacture of illegal drugs like crystal meth. The problem with this issue is that sellers are not always honest and agents not always ethical when it comes to disclosure issues. The court records are full of cases where homeowners and their representatives are sued for allegedly covering up known defects in an attempt to sell the house to unsuspecting purchasers. The difficulty in many of these situations is proving that the vendors knew about the defects or issues and willingly withheld that information. This can often be difficult to determine, even with experienced trial lawyers and judges involved.
In Winnipeg, there is currently some help, courtesy of the Winnipeg Police Department. For the last while, our boys in blue have been publishing the addresses of any homes or buildings that have been raided as grow ops. An easy to navigate website lists all of these properties where marijuana plants have been seized. This may be some help in your search for information on the past activities within a home, but is currently limited to listings from March of last year to the present. The website can be found at: www.winnipeg.ca/police/drug_awareness/growop_addresses.stm (ignore any hyphens at line breaks, there are no hyphens in the address).
To address your concern about not being told that the prospective home you were looking at in Westwood was a former grow-op, there may be a bit of grey area with the timing of the disclosure. You may not have been informed of the past life of the house when you went to do a short viewing of the home as that information may not have been readily available to you or your agent. That isn't to say that the information would not have been provided to you, had you decided to think of making an offer to purchase when the house was still listed. What is truly reprehensible is that the owner did not say anything when you made your offer, after the home was taken off the MLS. Unless she was completely unaware of the activities of past tenants, which is very doubtful, she was knowingly hiding the truth from you.
The best protection you can have to avoid purchasing a home that has been used as a grow-op, other than seeing the address listed on the police website, is to hire a competent home inspector to evaluate the property. All good home inspectors have attended at least one presentation, done by various police forces across the country, about identifying grow-ops. I have personally attended three or four over the last decade, at various different conferences and seminars. I have seen officers from the Winnipeg and Calgary Police Forces and others from Ontario give excellent presentations on how to tell if a home may have been used to grow dope or produce illicit drugs. These seminars teach inspectors, and other interested parties, what to look for.
While no guarantee that a small grow-op will be identified during a typical home inspection, evidence of large scale operations should be visible in the attic, basement, electrical system or other areas of the home. Unless these areas have been extensively cleaned and the moisture damage and mould covered up, a good inspector should see the red flags. Buying a home that has been recently, extensively renovated without proper evaluation by a Registered Home Inspector or National Certificate Holder is really looking for trouble.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the President of the Canadian Association of Home Property Inspectors - Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be e-mailed or sent to: Ask The Inspector, P. O. Box 69021, #110-2025 Corydon Ave., Winnipeg, MB. R3P 2G9. Ari can be reached at (204) 291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca .
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