Your best bet is to have a residential structural engineer do a site visit and a soil test. As the home is only 10 years old, it is normal to have some settlement and additional settlement after 10 years should be minor. The fact you are concerned of future settlement should be a red flag. Additionally, you are concerned about moisture. Two red flags. It is your choice, but buyer beware. Best of luck.

I am so happy to see you here! I will have to go back and see if i can retrieve my posts... thought I would make them into a little book for my daughter, with photos. Quick run-down on the bathroom (not travels, no time) - The kitchen has a rather elegant sliding door with beveled glass panels. Painted white, since this was the original colour. GD's new bathroom has the doors I had picked earlier; i thought of polishing them but decided sprayed automobile paint (on a resin primer) would wear better. Especially since it is such a small bathroom, and she is so splashy. I have this finish in my kitchen and it has lasted 15 years now. A tad chipped here and there, but only needs a wipe down once a week. Same finish for the balcony doors, also split like the bathroom. We have a new wardrobe, a study table with built-in shelves, and a small chest of drawers for her odds and ends. I want to re-tile the tiny balcony, more as a little statement. Currently we are looking at Portuguese tiles, though I did think a mosaic with a funky cat might be nice. Let me see the costing. The room will be painted a neutral adobe, with bright white woodwork and an off-white ceiling. This means she can go wild with cushions and covers. Other changes in the flat; We have changed the glass in the master bedroom and living room from small cramped panes to a single pane for each section with a 1" bevel all round. Doubles the cost of the glass, but looks so elegant! The air-conditioning is being re-located. The compressors were all mounted in the bedroom and living room balconies, which looked terrible and meant the balconies (very narrow, only 30" deep) couldn't be used for anything. Not even plants. So they are being moved so that the compressors can be mounted at the rear of the building. two down, one to go. Now we can put in some nice plants, fishtail palms etc. The kitchen counter on one side came out intact and will be reused elsewhere. I am planning overhead storage, cupboards, and a draining cupboard for plates and glasses. Right now there is no dish washer, though a place is earmarked, but for now I will put in a cupboard with steel racks for cups, glasses and plates, all hidden behind pressed glass doors. This is all in the planning stage.... Pictures in a little while, they are mostly on my ipad and don't transfer well to the mac. They come without numbers... so I have to rename the or something. Somebody tell me how to do this!

As political posters go, not bad! I would actually have one of these. Though my spouse gets a little nervous if I put up stuff with red flags on it.

Debbie, acm - Thank you very much for responding. This is a new apartment and not a remodel. I have attached the floor plan of the room & closet. In the photo below the closet is the space "DRESS" and having dimensions 5 ft 11" (X axis) x 4 ft 7" (Y axis). For representational purposes, the diagram shows an L shaped closet. Ignore that - this is a complete blank space. I am instead planning on putting the closet along the 5 ft 11" wall- but on the opposite side instead of the side shown in the diagram. So imagine my closet along a single wall, set against the wall marked with a thick dark line. acm - I did not mean a bi-fold. But rather the traditional shutter door which some may refer as a swing shutter. My dilemma is - should i use sliding doors or regular doors ? I divided my closet into 4 major compartments, each 1 ft 6" wide. So there are a total of 4 doors. Depth of closet is 2 ft. Hence walkthru space is 2 ft 6". When a closet door is open, there wld be 1 ft space between the open door & the wall. Within each of these 4 compartments, I have designed multiple external drawers upto 2 ft height from base. So the shutters/doors planned only for the portion above 2 ft. Sliding Doors - Pros - Swing space not needed. Can place a slim dresser in the corner if I want to later. Cons - Expensive as it will needlessly cover the bottom-most drawers; Sliding doors coming off rails. Regular Doors Pros - Inexpensive. Can be used to cover only the part above the drawers (need not cover drawers). This way I can open the drawers below quickly & easily. Cons - Not sure if 2 ft 6" is enough clearance space to open 18" doors. Hope this makes sense. What do you suggest?