Legal Question in Business Law in Maryland

failure to disclose

Bought a restaurant business and in the lease, there is a section pretaining to the septic system. It reads that I am responsible for any repairs, replacement parts or drainfield replacement. It is a sand mound system. We were open 2 weeks and the system overflowed out onto the parking lot and down onto the highway, been bubbling above ground ever since. Landlord was contacted and said to keep it quiet, Health Dept. could close the business for this, contact someone to fix it, gave us a name. The contact stated the landlord knew about this for years, never mentioned this at closing or anytime. We had to have a new hood suppresion system installed, due to the existing one being outdated and red flagged 4 years earlier, red flag just happened to be missing at the time of walk thru and numerous other things not disclosed. And yes I'm sure he knew about the hood suppression system being outdated. Cost me 5,000. If I would have known about the septic at the beginning of this venture, I would not have bought. Taking care of a septic system, in a lease, was not to my liking in the first place, let alone dealing with a defunct system. 30,000 to 50,000 to replace. Can I get him for failure to disclose this information????????


Asked on 9/09/07, 7:31 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Sher Wagshal and Sher

Re: failure to disclose

I think you have a good case against the landlord and also the seller of the business for failing to disclose the problem. However, if you had the opportunity to have the property inspected and such an inspection would have revealed the problem, they may use that as a defense.

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Answered on 9/11/07, 12:26 pm


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