Agents “lying” as a matter of course is not all that common as it is quite easy to lose your license and your livelihood if you are convicted by the State Real Estate Board of misrepresentation. And this is not even required to go to Court this is simply an state administrative board that can impose this sanction. There are bad agents, but there are no more of them than there are buyers and sellers who are trying to get away with something and will play an agent all day long.
Some clients have the notion that agents are omniscient about any and all facts regarding real estate. This is not the case. The vast majority of an agent’s job is marketing, value analysis/awareness, client management, and effective negotiating. There are lots of other practical odds and ends an experienced agent will pick up along the way, but we are not bankers, attorneys, surveyors, etc.
There is a relatively low bar to becoming a real estate agent in most cases, so yes, it is possible to get an inexperienced person or a person who is not all that sharp, but in most cases an experienced agent will be far more help than hindrance in acquiring real estate.
Beyond this ask questions. The large majority of issues that become lawsuits are things people assumed were X when they were Y. If you can’t get answers move to the next deal.
The standard title policy excludes “matters of survey.” If you wanted such coverage, you would have to have asked for it, pay an extra premium, and thousands of dollars for an ALTA survey. (See Astro’s first post.)
Whenever you buy property, you should get an attorney to handle the closing and all other matters concerning the purchase. Too late for that now, but that’s usually the case. You realize you needed an attorney after the fact. The attorney would have made a personal exam of the property and looked at the survey.
Did your attorney just come to the closing? Before you signed anything, you should have had an attorney who should have examined the papers and inspected the property.
The bottom line is right here. However, you’ll definitely want to consider t-bonham’s point, which is to leave well enough alone. If you indeed got the same amount of land that you “paid for” (not necessarily the land that you thought you were getting based on the visual inspection of the backyard), then you may not have much recourse. If you start a lawsuit against the agent or seller, there’s a good chance this will come to the county’s attention sooner or later.
Do see an attorney as soon as possible (and be prepared to pay a few hundred dollars to get at least an initial opinion). If you do need to seek legal recourse, there are statutes of limitations that will prevent you from doing so if you wait too long. IANAL, I am not your lawyer, etc.
Also, not to pick a fight or be a junior mod, but comments like these:
I have never had an attorney (in a professional capacity) physically “inspect” a property in my almost quarter century of selling commercial real estate, this is typically left to professional property inspectors or various other contractors or tradespeople with expertise in the elements being investigated.
This is typically something that is part of due diligence portion of the contract that the buyer or their agent coordinates with the various inspectors, attorneys really don’t get involved with this unless there is some large issue that crops up.
Do attorneys actually do this in your area? It would seem to be a huge liability as few attorneys I know are expert in all the aspects of property condition.
My 2 cents FWIW
IANALRorS lawyer, realtor or surveyor.
The OP thinks the plat maps are not available. I believe they are public records everywhere. I buy tax liens and in my state, if the parcel maps are online in most counties. The few that are not were available via email or phone call to the assessor’s office for the county. Of course, if the OP were close, take a lunch hour and drop into the assessor’s office. It is pretty easy to read plat maps and on the rare occassion thei map is ambiguous (I once caught an improperly written legal description this way), the assessors office can help translate.
Most neighborhoods have the back property lines as a continuous line. If I’m looking at a house and my back fence does not line up with my neighbor’s by 30 feet, I am asking the seller('s agent) explicitly, “Is this part of the property.” and getting it in writing.
The survey is there but you didn’t look at it. What was the purpose of the survey? Did your agent request it? Did you need it for title insurance? If it was for your personal knowledge, why didn’t you look at it?
If any action is taken, the OP will probably lose the use of the county land.
I’d let sleeping dogs lie.
Keep the area mowed. Setup a picnic table and enjoy the shaded woods. With luck, the land will never be developed. Of course nothing permanent can be placed on it. The chicken wire fence helps keep wild animals out. I wouldn’t disturb it.
Surveys are usually ordered as a matter of course in most real estate purchases these days. If there is any bank financing they are often required. Any competent agent will always suggest a survey unless there is relatively recent one at hand.
I’m not a lawyer or surveyor, but I don’t think most title insurance necessarily guarantees in any way, shape, or form the accuracy of a typical basic lot line survey.
A thought, for those more expert in ral property law than I to analyze: Consider asking the county for an easement for use of their land – you’re paying them for the privilege of leaving it a wooded ‘green space’, which is their use for it, plus your own right of access onto it. Ask the seller to pony up towards the cost of the easement, based on the misrepresentation of what was listed vs. what was actually conveyed. I would think a real estate lawyer’s fee for writing those two letters would not be inordinately steep, and the unspoken threat (which you wouldn’t follow through on) of having the letter to the seller come from your lawyer might induce him to make a reasonable offer to make good your ‘loss’ in not having the wooded area he’d claimed to be selling you. (It’s probably likely he thought he owned back to the fence, having himself never looked at the survey description either.)
The survey (a physical improvements survey) was done the day before closing and the survey was faxed to the settlement attorney on the day of my closing. So, yes, technically I did have access to it for a few minutes before I closed.
The lot was fenced in such a way that it appeared much larger than it was - this was at least passive deceit - the previous owners either got taken the same way and decided to pass it forward, or have been using the county property free for years.
The agent, it seems to me, decided to not mention details he must have known - he saw the neighbours’ fence lines and must have guessed (or else he is too stupid, but I thought the truly stupid agents went out of business during the meltdown.). Instead he let you assume, so you would pay bigger bucks under false assumptions and he got a nice commission.
I’m sure he saw the problem. Notice how he covered his ass by making you get a survey and then you conveniently did not really see it until it was too late?
Odds are you are SOL on this; the people engaged in deliberate deceit (if that) have crossed their eyes and dotted their tees.
Of course, if you make trouble for them, not only will you not win, but likely the offended parties will make a call and the county will make you move your fence. So chalk it up to experience and enjoy your oversize lot while you can get away with it (but don’t piss off your neighbours- they have phones too); then you have the dilemma when you sell of whether to be honest or not.
“Wooded lot” or “wooded back yard” means to me an area with some decent density of trees on it. I have never heard it refer to a fence. Still, a misleading add is probably totally useless in court when you had the opportunity to see the location, see the area of the lot writen on a deed or contract, did a survey, etc.
You might want to re-read the posts in this thread. Why on earth would the seller do this? In effect it more less admits misrepresentation. The contract and survey all reference the correct land area, and I’m guessing the actual listing data probably does also as most multiple list services will typically automatically pull or reference the existing tax database data which would have the correct land area. The ONLY thing (mentioned so far by the OP) that made him believe the yard was bigger than it actually was is the chicken wire fence section that pushed into the woods.
Making an argument that the property was misrepresented when every piece of technical data delivered to the buyer for his review was correct will be a difficult argument to make.
I thinl Polycarp was suggesting a negotiation tactic the OP might use to potentially be compensated for the perceived misrepresentation by the seller.
I agree the seller just has to say, “Didn’t you get a survey prior to closing that showed the property lines? You did. Well that was the time to raise your objection, not now after closing.”
People keep (bizarrely) noting in this thread that the agent suggesting a survey was somehow “suspicious” behavior. These days almost all competent agents will suggest (some virtually insist) that a survey be done. In additional many banks require it as a matter of course.
It would be suspicious to me if the agent did not ask for survey to be done. Asking for the survey is going to show exactly where the lot line is and would possibly (according to the OP) have blown the deal if the buyer has spent more than few seconds looking at it. Trying to whip this into some conspiracy to deceive is absurd.