Home seller did not disclose defective trees

If you sell a Florida property, and the buyer later claims in court to have discovered a defect that you did not properly disclose, that buyer must be able to demonstrate that: you knew about the property defect. the defect has a substantial impact on the value of the property.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Josh, you're on News 96.5. Go ahead.

Josh: Hey Tom. Thank you for taking my call. We recently purchased a home, went through the entire process, had inspections, did disclosures. Come to find out now that we've moved in the home, our neighbor has provided us three different certified letters, in which they notified the previous homeowner of some issues with trees on property line concerns and safety concerns. That was never disclosed to us. What options do we have?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Well, first of all, your seller was obligated to disclose to you all known defects and assuming these trees are defects, we now have evidence that they knew about it. Josh, what's wrong with these trees?

Josh: They're cypress trees, and they're all becoming uprooted because it's in a wetland area, but they're hanging over the neighbor's property. Their concern is they're eventually going to fall and cause damage to the neighbor's home.

Attorney Tom Olsen: They're alive and healthy otherwise, I assume, Josh.

Josh: They are.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Josh, I'm not so sure that this is a defect. Then number two, I want to qualify seller disclosed to you all known defects and qualified a little bit by all known hidden defects. This is a big old tree, I would have suspect that if you walked around the property, you would have seen that it's leaning and it's not necessarily a hidden defect. I'm not so sure that there's a case Josh, and I'm not so sure that this calls for you having to cut down these beautiful cypress trees.

Josh: Is that something good that our insurance would just happen handle down the road if something did happen or how would that affect us in the future?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Josh, I'm slightly concerned because your neighbor has put you on notice, but the real question is, if we brought out an arborist, and that arborist said, "Josh these trees are healthy, these trees are fine, these trees are firmly implanted, you don't need to be concerned about them." Then I'm going to feel good about it. "If the arborist said, "Hey Josh, you know what? You're right man. These trees with one big windstorm, they're coming down." Well, that's a whole other story. Josh, I think that what I would recommend at this moment in time would be that you get an arborist and get a written report about what the condition of these trees are, and how they might stand up to the next windstorm or hurricane.

Josh: I appreciate that. Sounds like a great idea.

Attorney Tom Olsen: All right, Josh. Bye. Bye. Hey folks, my name is Tom Olsen, and the mane of the show is, Olsen On Law. We are going to take a break. We'll be back in just a few minutes.