Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland

Re: hidden termite and water damage in home purchased 6 months ago

You may have legal recourse against: the seller; the seller's realtors; your own realtors; your home inspection co., if any; your termite inspection co., if any; and perhaps other parties.

Unfortunately, without being retained to review all relevant facts and circumstances, as well as documents--sale contract, disclosure form, etc.--I cannot advise you specifically about your problem. If you wish to discuss retaining my services, please see below, or call at 973-605-8995.

In general, a seller has an obligation to disclose material defects in the property of which the seller has "actual knowledge." Obviously the seller knew about some of the water damage. The question is, did the seller know about the extent of the water damage? Did the seller know or have reason to know of the termite damage? It sounds like the seller may have known, and failed to disclose. Deliberate failure to disclose is also actionable.

While you may not have the cash currently to hire an attorney, you still need to try to retain one, perhaps on a basis of payment over time.

Good luck.

Re: hidden termite and water damage in home purchased 6 months ago

Presumably you hired a termite inspector before the closing as a lender requirement. The extent of termite damage you describe seems likely to have been present at the time of that inspection, giving you a claim under the one year warranty provided by the termite company, at least as to treatment. I suggest you have a new inspection done be a different company to get an opinion as to how long the termites have been there. Unless you can prove the sellers actually knew about the termites, which is hard to do unless there is a friendly neighbor who happens to know the situation, or unless you discover the house was in a termite treatment program recently, this will be hard to do. Since you had an inspection, that puts the burden of discovery on you.

As for the water damage, once again you were put on some notice of a problem by the seller's partial disclosure. The issue here is should you have been diligent and had an inspection done and would that inspection have discovered the extent of the problem. If so, you probably can't hold the sellers responsible. The general rule is that if a problem is discoverable by a reasonable inspection, the seller isn't responsible unless he knew of it and didn't disclose.