Undisclosed Problem Surfaces Four Years After Purchase

Added December 29, 2003 by Ilyce R. Glink

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Summary: A buyer asks if they have any options regarding an undisclosed problem that the sellers knew about. Buyers often have no recourse unless you can prove the sellers fraudulently deceived you. The time to catch undisclosed problems is at the time of the purchase with a good home inspector.

Q: I bought a house about 4 years ago. We did not hire a professional home inspector, but instead used a contractor we trust to look over the home.

Recently, we noticed the corner of the garage was starting to sag. We called the insurance company, thinking it was due to a snow and ice problem, but the engineer they sent out said the problem had been there for a long time. He said the prior owners had known about it because they did a scab job in order to hide the problem that would come out later.

Our insurance company said they would not cover it because it was structural problem, not caused by a catastrophic event, like a huge snowstorm. The damage was caused over time.

He specifically wrote in his report that someone did a scab job to cover up a big problem. So, we spent over $7,000 fixing a problem that the sellers knew about, and did not disclose in their seller disclosure form.

Is there anything we can do about this now?

A: Unfortunately, the time to catch this problem would have been four years ago, when a professional home inspector might have found it.

Unless you can prove the sellers fraudulently deceived you, I think you just have to accept the fact that some people will do almost anything to get out of paying $7,000 to fix their roof.

Consult with a real estate attorney about any legal options you may have at this point.

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