I bought my townhouse 2 years ago. As part of the contract the seller agreed to fix certain items. I can prove they did not fix one of them and it’s not a small thing. They failed to fix a floor that is not level. It’s still not level.
I assume this would count as some sort of real estate fraud and I can sue them?
I don’t think they even attempted to make the repair. I don’t want to get a lot of money , just enough to fix the problem)
(yes, I should have dealt with this 2 years ago so that is not in my favor)
If it was an open issue there needed to should have been some note of this at settlement. Unless you have some separate side contract you did for these repairs that survived closing on the house or some monies that were escrowed for this at settlement I’m thinking you have little to no legal leverage to compel the seller to do anything 2 years after the fact unless you can prove there was some sort of concealment or misrepresentation involved, and it does not sound like that’s the case.
Coming after the seller 2 years after the fact for a non-level door that did not get fixed before closing does not sound like you have a winning case on your hands.
I’d just get handyman to fix the door or DIY at this point.
Astro is absolutely correct. Any decent real estate contract will have a clause in it stating that the contract doesn’t survive closing.
Only fraud or active concealment could overcome a no-survival clause, but very few law suits prevail on these claims. The key element is if the seller doesn’t allow an inspection or actively prevents an inspection. If you were allowed to do a walk through of the house before closing, a judge is going to find that you had a opportunity to inspect the floor to see if it was level.
Someone can sign a contract that said they fixed something when they did not , and that is no longer relevant? Guess real estate law is not like regular law.
How can you prove that there was no attempt at repair, vs. it was repaired but has become uneven again from settling over the past two years?
We’re selling our townhome, and will give the buyer receipts for the work we had done per their repair requests. But even if we don’t, the buyer is allowed to do a final walkthrough before closing, and that’s when they have opportunity to raise any objections before we sign the papers and hand them the keys.
Normally these types of things are closing conditions. You should have checked that they were done, before you were willing to close the transaction. That would have put the pressure on them to correct them, before they would get their money from the sale.
That ship has sailed. You have no leverage to get them to perform the corrective work or pay for it.
It depends on the terms of the contract. If they promised to do it, and you have not excused performance by closing on the sale (or otherwise), then you might still have a claim. It’s not “real estate fraud,” (unless they somehow concealed the fact it was not fixed) it’s simply a breach of contract.
If you believe the promise is still enforceable, send them a letter referencing their promise and explaining you’re still waiting for them to perform.
Guess I never thought someone would flat out lie about an item in a home sale.
I should add I actually have blueprints that show what they said was done. So it would be very easy to compare the floor now vs. the blueprint to show nothing was done.
I think the reason people are answering the way they are is that you were talking about fraud in the OP, and that’s a pretty serious, generally criminal accusation. If you have blueprints of what they said was done but it doesn’t match now, you probably can sue them because the work they were supposed to have done wasn’t done. But if you want to accuse them of fraud, you don’t really have any evidence that they attempted to deceive you - it’s possible that the contractor who was supposed to do the work ripped them off, or that they had an agreement with someone to do the work that they thought had been completed but wasn’t completed.
This sounds like a punch list or check list item and a fairly significant one but in the end it’s up to you to inspect and OK that the work was done prior to settlement.
If there was some specific testament (possibly the blueprints) you were given as affirmation that showed the work was completed and it was not you may have a case of some kind, but if it’s just blueprints of a prospective job than maybe not.
Just as an aside a floor leveling job requires engineering blue prints?
Blueprints were needed because the issue was considered a structural problem. A structural engineer came in and did the blueprints.
The floor problem was caused by a water heater being put on the floor with no extra bracing. The plan from the engineer was to put extra bracing on the floor.
As I said , I guess maybe I was stupid to simply believe that nobody would lie during a house sale. And they did make other fixes as well. I suppose they skipped this repair since it was expensive and also it was not easy to check on .
I agree that the contractor might have lied about completing the work.