What to do if I was told by seller/seller’s agent that foundation repairs had been done but was not told that the work was under warranty and that I only had 30 days to transfer it?
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What to do if I was told by seller/seller’s agent that foundation repairs had been done but was not told that the work was under warranty and that I only had 30 days to transfer it?
It’s now been 4 years and I need $2,500 worth of foundation work done that would have been covered under warranty if it had been transferred. The engineer says that he cannot honor warranty of home because it wasn’t transferred to me. Do I have any recourse as warranty information was not disclosed to me at time of sale?
Asked on November 23, 2015 under Real Estate Law, Texas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 8 years ago | Contributor
There was no obligation to disclose the warranty information, so there is no recourse, unfortunately. While the seller could not lie to you--that is, he or she could not tell you the warranty would automatically transfer to you, if he/she knew that was not the case--simply failing to tell you about a warranty is not fraud. Since there is no legal obligation that work be warrantied or that a seller pass on a warranty (unless, that is, the contract of sell itself requires warranties to be passed on), a failure to disclose a warranty is no different from there being no warranty in the first place--there is no liability to the seller, since there was no obligation in regards to the warranty. Again, if the seller affirmatively lied, then that could create liabilty based on fraud, since someone may not misrepresent the truth to get you to enter into a sale with them...but it's the affirmative lie which would create liability. Without that lie, under the circumstances you've described, there would seem to be no liability.
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