I'm going to take a tangent on the Home thread. Has anyone out there purchased a home warranty? Later this month, I close on a condo and my real estate agent included a clause where the seller has to pay for my choice of home warranties up to $300. As a first time buyer, I'm clueless about which companies are reputable. I've checked a few with the BBB. Is a satisfactory rating ok? Do you have one? Was it worth it? Which company did you purchase the warranty through?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

Answers

when i bought my house years ago, my mother bought me a home warranty for a house warming gift. it was a complete sham. i tried to apply the warranty to repairs about 7 times, and all 7 times were refused for one reason or another. maybe it was just a lame warranty, but the large print stated that just about everything would be covered. good luck with your's.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

You don't happen to remember the name of the company the warranty was through, do you?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

Try www.realtor.com they have a lot of helpful information.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

Oh HI - me again, I thought this may also be helpful.

Century 21

Also, your realtor should be able to provide you with this sort of information and if he/she doesn't know the Broker of their office should. If not, don't be shy to call a Century 21 office for help in your area.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

we have American Home Shield. we've only had to use it once which was for our a/c. they came and put freeon in it and we paid like $30. the a/c will need to be replaced in the near future, but they wont even attempt to replace something until it is completely dead and unfixable.

sorry i don't have more info about this company, but i 'have' heard it is reputable. we paid $300 the first year and $400 the second year. their number is 1-800-776-4663

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

We got a warrenty on our 15 year old house from the seller two years ago. We renewed it at our expense after the first year.

It has paid off for us. They have fixed a lot of plumbing, replaced the fan motor on the air conditioner, fixed some bad wiring, and overhauled our stove a couple of times.

They will fix something if they possibly can rather than replace it. We have a very old stove that we wish they'd replace, but they keep sending a guy out to fix it. The stove guy is quite a character, he lives and breaths stoves and will probably keep this one alive forever.

The repair people are mostly indepentant individuals or small contractors, but they've all been competent. We had one that we sent away because we were uncomfortable about him, and they sent another guy with no problem.

Our policy is from "home buyers resale warrenty corp".

We're glad we have our policy and plan to keep renewing it as long as they will let us.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2000