Spring has officially sprung and with it some new homeowners that bought and moved into what they may have originally envisioned being their dream homes during the chill of the winter months might now be getting their first true test of ownership: the emergence of some serious issue or issues that happened to go undisclosed by the seller in the process of purchasing. Frequent calls to our office around this time agonize over the seemingly overnight discovery of leaky basements or roofs, with repairs potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars, as weather shifts and places new seasonal strain on properties.
It is fair to assume one of the first thoughts most new homeowners have when discovering a serious, potentially undisclosed defect is: “How could the seller not have known of this?” hopefully followed shortly by a mental checklist of all the things they did themselves to try to investigate the integrity of the property they chose to buy. One of the common missteps has to do with the thoroughness or lack thereof of the home inspection.
While the housing market has cooled some from the frenzy of the early decade; when waiving an inspection, though risky, could pay off by making a bid more competitive, it is still not uncommon to hear potential clients say either: (1) an inspection was not completed or (2) an inspection was completed, but further investigation of flagged issues probably should have been undertaken. Ohio follows the common law property rule of caveat emptor, in which the home buyer is expected to do more than take a seller’s word for it that the home being sold is pristine. To give themselves even a small measure of opportunity to combat a seller’s potential failure to disclose a hidden or latent defect, buyers must exercise due diligence to investigate the property, or they risk buying the defect and all the costs that may go into remedying it.
Sellers do have a duty to disclose hidden or latent defects that they have direct knowledge of, and these should always be reflected on a Residential Property Disclosure Form provided to a buyer before closing. While failure to disclose claims frequently die on the vine because proving what a seller actually knew is easier said than done, failing to thoroughly inspect the property being bought places buyers on the wrong legal foot almost immediately and rarely can be overcome in turning a slim chance at recovery into an all but zero one.
This is not legal advice; this is a legal advertisement.
