Buying a home is usually one of the most important steps, but also one of the most delicate, especially if at the time of carrying out the operation the buyers do not have all the important information about the property. Humidity or structural defects that are not seen can make what you thought was the purchase of the ideal home become a problem and this is what happened to a French couple, who a few days after signing the deed discovered that the house had a defect that the sellers had not told them.
According to information collected by the media Figaro Real Estatethe couple acquired a home for 190,000 euros in May 2022. They signed the deed, received the keys and moved in normally. However, just ten days later, the city council informed them of a situation that changed everything: they could not access their own patio for safety reasons.
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The origin of the problem was in the neighbors’ home, which had suffered a gas explosion months before, and there was a risk of collapse of a shared façade, which led the authorities to issue an order prohibiting the use of that area.
Information that sellers already knew
The most relevant thing about the case is that this order was not recent, it had been issued on March 1, 2022, two months before the sale, and the sellers had been officially notified, as the buyers demonstrated at trial.
According to the ruling of the Judicial Court of Montpellier, the sellers were aware of the problem and still did not report it, which represented a breach of the warranty due to hidden defects. Evidence was even provided such as documents signed by the sellers themselves and communications from the insurer related to the incident.
The buyers stated that, if they had known about this situation, they would not have bought the home or they would have negotiated a lower price, so they decided to file a lawsuit.
Compensation for damages and loss of opportunity
Faced with this situation, buyers had two options; request cancellation of the purchase or claim a price reduction. Finally they opted for the second route.
To calculate the economic damage, independent assessments were commissioned. One of them estimated that, without the problem, the home would have had a value of between 160,000 and 170,000 euros, well below the 190,000 paid.
The court concluded that the buyers had lost the opportunity to negotiate a significant reduction and set a total compensation of 35,166 euros. This amount includes 28,500 euros for the loss of the opportunity to negotiate the price, 4,666 euros for the impossibility of using the patio and 2,000 euros for moral damages.