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Previous Homeowner being sued by new Homeowner

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dexter

Junior Member
We sold our house in Northern California. We had some landscaping done in our backyard without a permit and disclosed this before the sale of the house. Both parties signed the disclosure forms and the sale went through. 3 days after the sale of the house, the slope behind the house slid down and took out the retaining wall that was built without a permit. This also affected the neighbor next door. The home builder hired a soil engineer who placed the blame on the retaining wall. My question is, since we disclosed this before the sale of the house, does this place the liability on the new home owner? We disclosed everything we knew about the house before the sale.
 


acmb05

Senior Member
dexter said:
We sold our house in Northern California. We had some landscaping done in our backyard without a permit and disclosed this before the sale of the house. Both parties signed the disclosure forms and the sale went through. 3 days after the sale of the house, the slope behind the house slid down and took out the retaining wall that was built without a permit. This also affected the neighbor next door. The home builder hired a soil engineer who placed the blame on the retaining wall. My question is, since we disclosed this before the sale of the house, does this place the liability on the new home owner? We disclosed everything we knew about the house before the sale.
Who built the retaining wall? Why was it done without proper permits? If it was not built to code then you have a problem.
 

HomeGuru

Senior Member
dexter said:
We sold our house in Northern California. We had some landscaping done in our backyard without a permit and disclosed this before the sale of the house. Both parties signed the disclosure forms and the sale went through. 3 days after the sale of the house, the slope behind the house slid down and took out the retaining wall that was built without a permit. This also affected the neighbor next door. The home builder hired a soil engineer who placed the blame on the retaining wall. My question is, since we disclosed this before the sale of the house, does this place the liability on the new home owner? We disclosed everything we knew about the house before the sale.

**A: did you specifically disclose that the retaining wall was built without a permit? And what exactly do you consider "landscaping?"
 

dexter

Junior Member
We did state in the disclosures that the wall was built without a permit. Upon further investigation it turns out that no permit is needed if the wall is less than 5 feet tall. The retaining wall is only 3.5 feet tall. We were under the impression that you need to disclose everything that you know to be a problem. Since we had no idea the slope would slide down because of a retaining wall, how would we know to disclose this?

We consider landscaping "Anything that improves the condition of the yard" The house was brand new when we purchased it and the backyard was only dirt. We hired a person to put down a concrete patio and retaining walls. We disclosed that the walls were built without a permit. They had the house inspected and in the inspection report it lists that there were cracks in the retaining wall. The buyers were aware of the problem before purchasing the house. We assumed the cracks were caused by the earth settling and considered them cosmetic.
 

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