[quote author="Soylent Green Is People" date=1244070007]
As for landslides, I grew up in that very neighborhood. The PIQ is nowhere near the slide area. You'll be fine.
My 02c
Soylent Green Is People.</blockquote>
Maybe it's not near the landslide area, but this house definitely has some slope problems. I checked the records at the LB city hall. This house had a surficial failure along the southeast slope in 1995, 1998, and again in 2005. I'm not the best at reading these records, but it looked like $140,000 worth of repair work was performed initially, and another $80,000 performed after the 2005 landslides. The sewer line was damaged on two of these occasions, but the other utility pipes were o.k. Even after the 2005 repairs, the engineer stated that occupancy should not be permitted in the SE lower level bedroom because repairs to the slab that was undermined by the landslide had not been completed. Nothing indicating that the repair work was ever completed.
I didn't see anything about a fine, but there were several City Code Enforcement letters over the course of several years stating that the repair work was not up to code, and if it was not fixed they would refer the case for prosecution. The last letter was in late 2008. The retainer wall is indeed partially on a neighbor's property, but there was no indication whether the neighbor was pursuing any remedies.
Lastly, an investigation concluded that the "slope has a low overall gross factor of safety." A casion-tieback system was installed, but no indication of completion or effectiveness.
The house is basically a shell at this point. Cheap price by LB standards, but you'd be buying yourself a lot of work and a lot of headaches.