Defects in a New Home

"I recently bought a twenty year old home. When I moved in, I noticed that the sliding door to the patio did not close properly or run smoothly in its track. Can I make a claim against the previous owners for the costs of repairing this door?"

The answer is based on two reasonable assumptions. Firstly, that the agreement did not specifically deal with the door. Secondly, that you did not notice this condition prior to submitting your offer to purchase.

There is no legal obligation on sellers to disclose faults when selling their residence unless the condition is something inherently dangerous. The law presumes that buyers will make a full inspection for the purpose of discovering any defects and will set their offering price based on that knowledge. In other words, even for the purchase of an existing residence, it is still basically "buyer beware". The obligation of the sellers is to leave the premises in the same condition as when the purchaser inspected them, subject to reasonable wear during the time prior to the closing of the transaction. Damage which does occur in that period is generally the responsibility of the sellers. In summary, unless you can establish that this condition arose or was caused during the period from your last inspection to the closing date, then you probably do not have a good claim against the sellers. In retrospect, you might wonder whether a home inspector might have discovered this problem if asked to evaluate the property before your offer was submitted. If you have any other questions about real estate, please check the other entries under "Real Estate".