What can I do if we bought a house with a flooding basement?
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What can I do if we bought a house with a flooding basement?
We dealt with very sketchy and cantankerous sellers who were very difficult to work with and their realtor was not very knowledgeable, to put it politely. We were told that the basement had not flooded in the past, however, our inspector warned that the way the lawns slope, was that
it was a distinct possibility. We closed about 15 months ago and the day we moved in, we noticed the sellers had left a wet/dry vac in the basement. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as we had the first rain wed experience in our new home, we
figured out why that was left down there the basement was teeming with water. Every subsequent rainstorm has grown more and more frustrating as we spend literally hours down there vacuuming and cleaning up after the mess. We are concerned that with 2 small children in the house, potential mold and further water damage could be detrimental. The sellers were not cooperative and when we asked for additional inspections, we were denied and threatened with them putting the house back on the market and not refunding
the deposit we had put down. They had us backed into a corner and now we dont know what to do. The behaved as though they were selling a 3.2 million home and it was 320k.
Asked on September 25, 2018 under Real Estate Law, Connecticut
Answers:
S.L,. Member, California Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
You can sue the seller for fraud. Fraud is the intentional misrepresentation or nondisclosure of a material fact made with knowledge of its falsity and with the intent to induce your reliance upon which you justifiably relied to your detriment.
In other words, you would not have bought the house had you known of the flooding.
Your damages (monetary compensation you are seeking in your lawsuit for fraud) would be either the benefit of the bargain or your out of pocket loss.
Benefit of the bargain means a defrauded purchaser may recover the difference between the real and represented value of the property regardless of the fact that the actual loss suffered might have been less.
Out of pocket determination of damages for fraudulent misrepresentations permits recovery of the difference between the price paid and actual value of the property acquired.
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