Is there a time period after the purchase of a house that I can hold the agent responsible for any defect found
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Is there a time period after the purchase of a house that I can hold the agent responsible for any defect found
8 months after I bought the house I had
a problem , Can I still hold the real
estate agent responsible
Asked on October 8, 2017 under Real Estate Law, Alaska
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
You can *never* hold the real estate agent responsible unless you can show that the agent him/herself lied to you (committed fraud)--and if the agent simply passed along information provided by the seller, the agent is not responsible for that (the agent is not legally obligated to indepedently verify anything, including what problems the home does or does not have; the agent may rely on what the seller tells him or her). If you believe the seller misrepresented (or lied) to you about something signficant, including lying by ommission (by failing to disclose something of which the seller was, or logically must have been, aware), you can sue the seller (not the agent) based on fraud, to recover monetary compensation (typically the cost to correct or repair the issues). You are still well within time (10 years) to bring a legal action in your state based on fraud. To win the case, you will have to be able to prove that the seller lied about the problem; if the seller legitimately did not know of it, then he or she is not liable.
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