NEWNAN, Ga. – UPDATE: Since this story first aired, the homeowners say they have settled their lawsuit with Jarhouse. The terms are confidential, but they say Jarhouse has bought their home back.
A Hollywood stuntman moves to Georgia and finds himself caught up in some unexpected real-life twists. Far from being happy, Matt Thompson and his family are living in a home that's filled with discontent.
“Everything here is awful,” the Louisiana native complained as he walked through his Newnan backyard, directing his anger at the home-flip company that sold him the property.
“We wanted to move without any worries, and that's exactly what didn't happen,” he explained.
The company is called JahHouse and is run by Zareh Najarian. The Sandy Springs company buys and sells an average of 75 homes per month, many of which are foreclosures. They sell their properties “as is,” which means buyers need to hire a home inspector to make sure they know what they're buying.
State law says that if a seller knows a home has major defects, they can't keep them secret — and this is where the Thompson family's story takes a surprising turn.
Shortly after Thompson and his pregnant wife moved in last year, the toilet started backing up and it turned out the septic system had failed.
They can't use their new washing machines. Instead, they have to drive to a nearby laundromat every few days. To reduce the frequency with which they have to pump water from their septic tank, they take showers instead of baths. They wash dirty dishes in the sink instead of in the dishwasher.
The estimated cost of repairing the septic tank is $60,000. But that's not the only shocking thing.
The homeowner who sold Jah House the property had moved just down the street, and Thompson found him. According to a lawsuit Thompson filed against Najarian Capital, the firm behind Jah House, the previous owner says he warned Jah House about a problem with the septic system. He wrote in the seller's disclosure that “after several days of heavy rain, the septic system will not function properly, but will return to normal after a few days.”
Jah House never passed on that warning to Thompson.
“If you had told me there were problems with the septic system, would you have bought this house?” I asked him.
“No,” Thompson insisted. “Negative.”
In his lawsuit, Thompson calls the company's failure to comply with the law and disclose known defects in the homes “deceptive and fraudulent.”
They even have an affidavit from the previous owner that states, “I believe Mr. Najarian was fully aware of the septic system issues which were disclosed and discussed with us at the time of the sale of the home.”
“The big thing for me is that they knew about it,” Thompson complained.
Mr. Najarian's company purchased the property for $205,000. He sold it to the Thompsons for $275,000.
“This is 'as is,' no disclosure,” Najarian countered, explaining his policy: “Hire an inspector.”
Zara Najarian said Jah House's rule is not to disclose defects because they don't live in the homes they sell — they just resell them. She also suggested that Jah House may have actually been duped because the seller didn't disclose the true severity of the $60,000 septic tank problem, instead saying “the system will be back to normal in a few days.”
“These are completely different things,” he stressed.
I asked him what harm could have been done by handing over the previous owner’s septic tank disclosure information to Thompson.
“Well, we do a lot of property,” Najarian said, “and… at the end of the day, there's a lot you can do, right?”
“Is it possible that you didn't want to tell him because it would make it harder to sell the property?” I asked.
“No…we've been in this business a long time and we're not trying to squander every opportunity we have.”
Both sides are currently in depositions in their court battle. Mr. Najarian has said he has no plans to buy the house back. There's no happy ending in sight for this script.
“Ultimately, I hope this is resolved and dealt with appropriately, and I hope that the people who are doing this will deter others from doing the same thing,” Thompson argued.