Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Georgia
Deceived by seller of property.
I purchased 4 acres at $11,500.00, per acre. The seller had owned the land for 25 years. I found out when I started to build that half the property is in a FEMA Flood Plain. The seller did not devulge this information to me. Land in a flood plain is worth about $2,000-$3,000, per acre in this area. Nothing can be built on this part of the property. Do I have any recouse aginst the seller?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Deceived by seller of property.
It depends. It is really going to turn on whether there was a duty to disclose and on whether you could have found out on your own by an investitgation prior to closing.
If the FEMA flood area could have been discovered by the examination of public documents (in the Court House or at FEMA HQ in Atlanta or Washington, DC) then you could have discoverd it and the Seller did not defraud you by failing to disclose it to you before or at closing. However there are lots of nuances to the Seller/Purchaser disclosure issue. Look at your seller disclosure form. See if there is a check off block for 100 year flood. Also, if you had a survey (which perhaps you did not) your surveyor should have disclosed the flood issue almost as a routine matter.
While I have not been to it recently, my recollection is that there is a new Internet site that shows satellite blow ups of all flood planes areas in the USA.
If you would like to discuss it further, email us via our website http://www.woodandmeredith.com
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