Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: real estate

A seller has a duty to disclose known defects. A seller also has a duty to disclose defects the seller should have known about. Here, the HOA was probably not the seller. Therefore, the HOA likely had no duty of disclosure to you. The seller of course did, however. For the seller to be liable, you will need to establish the seller knew or should have known about the slab crack, and failed to disclose it.

If the HOA knew about the slab crack, and the slab was a feature of the property for which the HOA had maintenance responsibility, or owned as common property, the HOA may be liable if the issue was not properly documented in the HOA file and you actually requested the file.

There may more facts that could change my response. The issue you posed only contains a few facts and my response is based on common assumptions. So, before you finalize your decision on what to do or not do against the seller or HOA, make sure you have a detailed conversation with a lawyer.

Re: real estate

You have a case against the HOA. The HOA is reponsible to repair the structure of the building. When you own a condo, you own the space inside the walls and the surface of the walls.

Re: real estate

Of course the seller is going to say he knew nothing. Why would he submit himself to a lawsuit? You would have to show the seller knew or should have known of the defects in the slab. I am curious how the HOA knew. Technically, only the seller and his agents have to disclose known defects, but as the HOA stands to benefit from your purchase of the condo, it would follow that it would be a material omission if it knew you were not warned of the cracked slab. It is pretty obvious that everyone is playing the point the finger at the other guy game. You could bring a lawsuit against all of them, including everyone in the chain of title, and make it their problem to determine who failed to disclose to who.