At Carolina Living Real Estate, we are always trying to educate our clients on various real estate subjects. Below is a good one for property owners to understand. As always, you can call us to discuss anything.
Below is an article posted on the Realtor website.
You must disclose even if can't be detected by usual means! See WHY!
QUESTION: Offer to Purchase and Contract (Form 2-T) – The seller failed to disclose a defect related to the property. Can my client terminate and get their Due Diligence Fee back?
ANSWER: A seller ordinarily is not required to disclose facts about their property. However, a seller must disclose material facts when such facts are only known to the seller and not within the diligent attention, observation, and judgment of the buyer. In other words, if there is a material latent defect on the property only known to the seller, and the buyer cannot discover the defect through reasonable diligence, the seller has a mandatory duty to disclose.
If a buyer goes under contract, and it is later revealed that the seller failed to disclose a mandatory material fact or made a misrepresentation that the buyer reasonably relied upon, then the buyer could have several legal claims. The claims would vary case to case, but if successful, the buyer could be entitled to damages. Such damages could be the amount necessary to place the buyer back in the same position they would have been had the offer not been made in the first place. That amount would at least include the Due Diligence Fee. Some claims available to the buyer could award substantially more damages, plus an award of attorney’s fees.
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