Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
real estate / civil
I remodeled my home pool in april of 2006 and it has a 5 year warranty. I sold my house in November that same year. My agents had advertised that it was a home with remodeled pool and warranty. Well, come to find out about a month or two after I sold it, the pool started leaking. When the new owners called the pool company that did the remodeling, they said that since we sold the home, the warranty was not transferable. I had no idea that this was going to happen. Now my agents are telling us to find someone to fix the leak or the new owners might sue. I'm thinking that since my agents have been in this business for a long time, shouldn't they have known to tell us to call the pool company before hand to find out if the warranty will transfer to the new owners before advertising it? I wanted to know who is responsible and what is the best thing to do? Thank you in advance for your help.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: real estate / civil
Not only should the agent have looked into it the buyer should have as well. You should speak with an attorney about this before taking any futher action.
Re: real estate / civil
I tried to research the subject of assignability and transferability of express warranties of home improvements, but within a reasonable amount of time I could not find any relevant case law or statutes.
My hunch is that the repair contractor is either misrepresenting the terms of the warranty, or that the warranty may be assignable to the new owners as a matter of law or public policy. That's why I did a search. However, I found nothing, either yea or nay.
My suggestion is that you re-ask this question on LawGuru, directing it to the practice area of warranties, negligence or perhaps construction law, and maybe someone who practices in the area of breach of warranty on contract for personal services (as opposed to warranties on sales of goods or real-estate issues).
You should also review a copy of the contract to see what it really says. If it is silent on the subject of successor owners, it's probably still valid. Even if it expressly says the warranty does not survive the sale of the house, you might want to challenge that language as being an impermissible (ineffective) waiver of your rights as against public policy.
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