Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

After eleven years, you are likely to have an insurmountable statute of limitations problem in bringing suit for failure to disclose back in 1999. My suggestion would be to visit two or three local attorneys for free initial consultations respecting a potential failure-to-disclose action against a real estate agent, broker and seller. Be prepared to discuss, early in the interview: (1) When you negotiated, contracted and closed the purchase; (2) When you first learned about the offender next door; (3) When the offender first moved in; (4) When offender addresses first had to be disclosed; (5) When this offender first complied with the law; (6) What the house was really worth at the time you bought it, to someone knowing all the facts; (7) what you paid; and (8) whether you have reason to suspect or believe the seller or his agent or broker actually knew about the sex offender.

If you have any chance of beating the limitations problem, your damages would be the difference between what you paid and what the house was actually worth to a buyer who knew all the facts at the time (1999).

Megan's Law in California first required registration in about mid-1996, but the registration data was not widely available until more recently. Further, California law does not appear to require the seller, broker or agent to perform research on the location of registered sex offenders and report the results of that research. Brokers commonly provide a disclosure form that informs the buyer, among other things, of the existence of a Web site where they may do their own research. See Civil Code section 2079.10(a).

You need to go back and review your purchase contract from the purchase of the home in 1999, and the disclosures that were given to you. The Standard Form Real Estate Purchase Agreement that most Realtors use to make offers on, and write up purchase agreements for homes contains a disclosure that states that it is your responsibility to search the registry to determine if any registered sex offenders live in the neighborhood BEFORE you buy the home. The time to investigate this was before you closed escrow, and it would have given you an opportunity to cancel the contract and walk away from the deal. I have been a licensed real estate broker since 1998 and I can remember back to that time that the contracts and disclosures all had the blanket statement that it was up to you to make that inquiry and determine if the neighborhood was one in which you wanted to live. The law is pretty clear that it is not the responsibility of the Seller to search out registered sex offenders and disclose them to you.

Second, you have almost certainly long-ago blown the statute of limitations on a failure to disclose action. The statute of limitations on a failure to disclose action runs from the date that you discovered the item that was not disclosed, OR the date on which you reasonably should have discovered the item. Since Megan's Law has been in place in California since 1996, at any time before or after you bought the house, you could have determined that you were living next to a registered sex offender. It appears that from your post, you discovered this fact years after buying the home, but that is not really relevant (though, as it has been 11 years since you bought the house, even if you had discovered it five years later, the statute of limitations has still long since run). What is relevant is that you COULD have discovered, and a reasonably-prudent person would have discovered that you had a registered sex offender living next door, and taken action (if one were even available) against the seller for failing to disclose this fact to you. Sitting on this information for many years has almost certainly caused any possible cause of action to have gone stale, and you are almost certainly now barred from suing the Seller or the real estate agents involved.

I am truly sorry to hear about your situation, but I'm afraid that you simply waited too long to pursue the claims, and as such, there really is no basis I can see to go after anyone. If it helps any, in all of the real estate transactions we are involved with, I can't remember the last time a buyer actually searched Megan's Law database before buying. I point it out to them, but nobody wants to even consider that when buying a home.

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