What Happens if a Home Seller Lies in Their Listing?

When you buy a home, you want to make sure you are getting a quality property that is worth what you're paying for it. After all, you'll likely need to get a mortgage for your home purchase and you don't want to borrow and pay a fortune for a house that has problems.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to ensure you pay a fair price for a property if sellers aren't honest about the home that's for sale. So, what happens if a seller does lie and you act based on their false statements when you make your home purchase?

A seller can be sued in some circumstances

If a seller lies when making required disclosures about the house or if the seller is dishonest in their listing, there are certain circumstances in which the seller could potentially be sued.

See, even if a seller sells a property "as is," the state may require them to disclose certain information that they would be in a position to know and that a buyer wouldn't. And if a seller lies on those disclosures, buyers could be harmed as a result of their failure to tell the truth. Sellers who lie in their listing or on any other information that they provide to the buyers are also doing those buyers a disservice, because buyers should be able to trust what the home's current owner is saying.

There are a number of different legal grounds that a buyer could pursue, with buyers potentially entitled to damages if they relied on a material misrepresentation or misstatement that made a fundamental difference in the value of the property or their ability to use it as intended. A lawyer could provide help to buyers in determining what the right course of action is when they suspect a seller has defrauded them in some way. Since tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars may be at stake, hiring a legal representative in this situation could be well worth it.

Buyers could also pursue a number of potential remedies when a seller lied, ranging from seeking monetary damages to recover the losses caused by the dishonesty, to asking the court to rescind the sale. The remedy will depend on the specific lies, the resulting damages, whether the case is settled or goes to trial, and what the court feels is fair to the buyer.

Selling brokers could sometimes also be held liable

If a real estate broker or agent was complicit in the lies that the seller told, the broker could potentially be sued as well. Typically, the buyer would need to prove that the agent knowingly or willingly committed fraud or shared material falsehoods with knowledge of the fact that the information was untrue.

Ultimately, it's not a good situation for a buyer when a seller has lied. If the buyer has lost a lot of money because of it, calling a lawyer could be the best option to try to explore all of the different possibilities for recovering compensation for the damages that resulted from the seller not being truthful during the transaction.