Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

Purchased house 6 weeks ago. Seller paid for inspection of well and septic, report came back "satisfactory". We looked at the house 2 times prior to purchase, first time, house smelled horrific. Their real estate agent said, they had several comments regarding this. Seller, then put in a 7k water purification system.

Long story short, after weekly issues with the water being dirty and just shutting off - it finally never came back on. Called a well specialist and he said, the well has no water in it anymore. Now, we have to pay thousands of dollars to drill deeper. Do we have any recourse at all?


Asked on 6/19/12, 12:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Stephen Messutta

You need to take your contract and closing documents to an attorney to review. If the sale was "AS IS...." and you had the chance to have someone inspect everything, the seller may be off the hook but the inspector may be on the hook if the inspector should have inspected the well at that time. You also should have received a "Real Estate Disclosure" form filled out by the seller and if the seller occupied the house it should indicate any problems with plumbing, well, etc. systems. If the seller lied on the form, you also may have recourse. But without a full, proper review, there's no way to tell for sure one way or the other.

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Answered on 7/07/12, 10:43 am


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