Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland

we need help with a big issue with my daughter's house. Stephanie bought her first home in 2014. We did everything right and got the home inspected. Cut to February 24th 2016 when her wall in the basement collapsed crushing everything in there and flooding with mud and water. So we call insurance and they don�t even want to send someone out, saying ground water probably did it. Well, in my opinion, the structure should have held up to rain instead of collapsing. Turns out someone had built a false wall in front of the old wall to hide the issues. In reality two walls collapsed, the original and the fake new one.However, when we called the �investor� who sold her the home, he says he is not liable, and that the wall was existing when he bought it�Well ok, then why did we find beer cans with the �born on" date stuffed into the cider blocks dating back from the end of 2013? The investor bought the home in sept 2013...Someone did something to that wall in 2013 just prior to her purchasing it. So we call the county inspector and he looks up the property and says no one ever had a permit to build a supporting wall in the basement and that I need to hire a lawyer because if no permit was pulled then no inspections were done and he can guarantee without even coming out that it was not built to code�He says get a lawyer and they will guide us as if he comes out on the property the current home owner is liable for the upgrading to code and then we have a case to go after the seller..but if we go through a lawyer they might be able to get the seller to get out there and fix it for her�SO I need a lawyer who deals in real estate issues and I don�t have a clue where to start�I called several that are real estate listed attorneys and they just handle sales �groan�My poor daughter lost so much and this will be 10�s of thousands to fix as now she is having cracks in her ceilings upstairs from foundation issues�.Does anyone have some suggestions?? Much appreciated


Asked on 2/29/16, 1:32 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Sher Wagshal and Sher

A home seller can be held liable to their purchaser if, at the time of sale, they knew or had reason to know of a defect in the premises that could not reasonably have been discovered by the purchaser prior to the transfer of title. This is legally termed a "latent defect". Presumably the condition you described was not something that typically turns up in a per-purchase inspection. Such claims are difficult to prove, because it must be shown that the condition was in existence at the time of sale, and that the seller had the requisite knowledge. Your daughter's seller, as an investor, only owned the home for a brief period of time, and I suspect never lived there. Since the false wall was unpermitted, there aren't records to pinpoint when this construction was done. You will need to retain an experienced litigator who also has familiarity with real estate law and file a suit. This will open the door to the pre-trial discovery process, which will allow you to demand documents and get written and oral testimony from the defendant/seller. If in fact he didn't know about the wall, he may file a third party action for contribution and indemnification from his seller. You will want to hire an expert contractor to inspect the area and hopefully determine how long the wall had been there.

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Answered on 3/01/16, 7:46 am


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