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    Latent Defect

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    Abuzar Khan
    A latent defect is a fault in property that cannot be discovered by a reasonable inspection before sale. Buyers generally must inspect purchases for patent, or observable, defects but are protected against latent defects. If a latent defect is discovered after sale, the seller must show they were unaware rather than the buyer proving knowledge. Contracts often include clauses addressing liability for latent defects found after purchase.

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    Latent Defect

    Uploaded by

    Abuzar Khan
    84 views2 pages
    A latent defect is a fault in property that cannot be discovered by a reasonable inspection before sale. Buyers generally must inspect purchases for patent, or observable, defects but are protected against latent defects. If a latent defect is discovered after sale, the seller must show they were unaware rather than the buyer proving knowledge. Contracts often include clauses addressing liability for latent defects found after purchase.

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    latent defects explained

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    A latent defect is a fault in property that cannot be discovered by a reasonable inspection before sale. Buyers generally must inspect purchases for patent, or observable, defects but are protected against latent defects. If a latent defect is discovered after sale, the seller must show they were unaware rather than the buyer proving knowledge. Contracts often include clauses addressing liability for latent defects found after purchase.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    84 views2 pages

    Latent Defect

    Uploaded by

    Abuzar Khan
    A latent defect is a fault in property that cannot be discovered by a reasonable inspection before sale. Buyers generally must inspect purchases for patent, or observable, defects but are protected against latent defects. If a latent defect is discovered after sale, the seller must show they were unaware rather than the buyer proving knowledge. Contracts often include clauses addressing liability for latent defects found after purchase.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    Latent defect

    In the law of the sale of property (both real estate and less it can be shown that the buyer was independently
    personal property or chattels) a latent defect is a fault aware of the defect and completed the transaction nev-
    in the property that could not have been discovered by a ertheless.
    reasonably thorough inspection before the sale. In construction contracting a latent defect is dened as a
    The general law of the sale of property is caveat emp- defect which exists at the time of acceptance but cannot
    tor (let the buyer beware) and buyers are under a general be discovered by a reasonable inspection.[1]
    duty to inspect their purchase before taking possession.
    However, it is understood at law that inspection is often
    not sucient to detect certain deciencies in the product 1 References
    that can only be discovered through destructive testing
    or other means that a seller could not reasonably be ex- [1] Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) PART 46
    pected to allow under normal conditions. For example, QUALITY ASSURANCE (PDF). p. 2. Archived from
    wood beams and interior brickwork often cannot be fully the original (PDF) on 2014-04-07.
    assessed without destructive testing, and it would be un-
    reasonable for the seller to allow the buyer to destroy part
    of the property in order to discover such defects.
    As such, the law expects that buyers will protect them-
    selves in the sales contract against defects they cannot
    possibly be expected to assess prior to purchase. As such,
    the term latent defect is often used as part of the guar-
    antee clauses in a sales contract so that the buyer can re-
    cover damages from the seller if defects turn up in the
    property after the sale. For example, the seller may be
    required to pay for repairs of any such damage.
    In Common Law, there is no automatic right for a buyer
    to claim against a seller for such latent defects when they
    are discovered, absent an agreement in contract. Civil
    Law in some jurisdictions (Quebec, Canada) does pro-
    vide for such an automatic right unless a property is sold
    without guarantee as to its quality. However, if a latent
    defect is discovered, there is often a presumption against
    the seller when a claim is made in misrepresentation that
    the seller knew about the latent defect. As such, the seller
    is required to show that he or she could not possibly have
    known of the defect, rather than the buyer having to show
    that the seller did know about the defect. However, if it
    can be shown the seller could not have known about the
    defect (and was not wilfully blind to the possibility) then
    the buyers claim will not succeed.
    However, when the defect could have been discovered by
    the buyer by a thorough inspection (a "patent defect"), the
    buyer cannot possibly succeed in a claim against the seller
    unless the seller actively took steps to hide the defect from
    a normal inspection.
    In all cases, where a seller actively misrepresents the con-
    dition of the property, such as by taking steps to make an
    inspection impossible or by lying about problems when
    directly asked, the buyer will almost always succeed un-

    1
    2 2 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

    2 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses


    2.1 Text
    Latent defect Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_defect?oldid=755865654 Contributors: Jerzy, SteveHFish, Vegaswikian, East-
    law, Kyle the bot, Bearian, Natg 19, Isaac.san.fran, Addbot, Misterx2000, MrOllie, Luckas-bot, Yobot, JackPotte, AnomieBOT, Diannaa,
    Mean as custard, EmausBot, Bamyers99, Defective Detective, ShaunRobinson1968, AdrianPS, Yenshen, WSKILVR, JJMC89, Rcg8285
    and Anonymous: 10

    2.2 Images
    File:Question_book-new.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
    Contributors:
    Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
    Tkgd2007

    2.3 Content license


    Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

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