I Found Termite Damage After Closing On My House - Lawyer Discusses

I Found Termite Damage After Closing On My House -
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Here are some of our past termite damage settlements:
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By: Daniel W. Whitney, Jr., Esq.
Whitney, LLP
409 Washington Ave, Ste 750
Towson, MD 21204
410 583 8000 - Phone
[e-mail]
Free Consultations
Hi, this is Dan Whitney with the Whitney Law Firm in Towson, Maryland. If you're watching this video, it's because you're probably looking information about the issue of I found termite damage after closing on my house. I handle, and my firm handles cases involving termite damage in houses that somebody just bought, and the new house, and what to do about it.
Buying a house, of course, is extremely expensive and it can be stressful. There's a lot of moving parts that most people just assume that the right thing, the right inspections, are being done. Oftentimes, that works, but when it doesn't, it can be a huge, big problem, an expensive problem. When it's something like termite damage, there really is no way to ignore it because once you know about it, the damage may be spreading. And of course, the damage has to get fixed in order to preserve the structural integrity of the house, depending on how bad the damage is.
The way that most people would discover termite damage in a new house is after they close they'll move in and within weeks or months, they'll come to find either the termites form by themselves flying or on the ground. They may find cracks in the wood. They might find what looks like saw dust popping out. They may look in their basement or somewhere where there's wood and realize that wood doesn't look right and do some investigation, maybe pry with the screwdriver, and find there's damaged wood. Of course, the issue, once you find the termite damages, "Well, what am I going to do about it now?"
The good news is, depending on how you did your purchase of the home, there are a number of parties that may have been, or may be responsible for finding that damage and bringing it to your attention before you bought the house. That is who you would look to, to determine who you may be able to recover compensation from, to properly repair the termite damage. Those parties that we have brought lawsuits and claims against in the past to recover compensation so our clients could repair the damage, those parties often include the seller, of course, potentially a real estate agent, either the buyer's or the seller's agent, because there's duties of disclosure on both ends. For example, even if a real estate agent represents the seller, if they know about termite damage, in Maryland, at least, they certainly must disclose that damage. It's a material fact, and they have a duty to disclose all material facts to all parties.
The seller or the real estate agent, and of course we cannot forget the WDI inspector or termite inspection contractor, there's a lot of cases against them in Maryland where they simply don't find, or they say they don't find damage that they should have seen, and of course had they seen it and they put it on the report and the potential buyer saw it, the potential buyer could have said, "Well, I see there's a problem. Let's either investigate it further." Or they could say, "You know what? I don't want any termite damage. I'm out."
We see a lot of termite damage cases arising out of houses that are flipped, because of course, the flipper has no real good incentive to do a solid job most of the time. They just want to flip it, hide any damage, or sometimes they hide the damage and then sell it to the next unsuspecting person who sees, maybe, a beautiful kitchen or some beautiful bathrooms or beautiful new floors. It's not until after they closed that they realize, Uh-oh, we've got termite damage in half the house. It's going to be a hundred thousand to fix. What do I do?"
The good news is depending on the facts of your case, you may be able to recover compensation and take care of the damage and sometimes money for emotional distress as well, depending on what happened and who hid what or who was negligent or what. Depends on the facts. But the point is you can find help and you can recover compensation in some situations.
If your case was in Maryland, please feel free to give us a call. We offer free consultations to homeowners and termite damage cases. Just give us a call or come to the website, whitneyfirm.com. We've also got some blogs on the website that talk about termite damage and some of the past cases we've handled. If you're looking for more information, please see the site. We'll be doing more videos on the subject. Thanks for watching. Take care. Bye.
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[@michaelmerck7576]

Ive had realtors try to get me mark it as no previous on the report even if we have a contract on that house .sometimes they will pick a pest control company that will mark it clean despite obvious previous issues.tgat is wht here in Georgia the Ga structural pest commission stopped certifcation of the wood infestation reports.companies can still issue them but the state doesnt regulate them anymore and cant be used in any court as a legal document

[@juanvelasquez7067]

Lighting plumbing wires gas wire gas outlet

[@pmexplore]

Thanks for sharing

[@WhitneyLLP]

Thank you.

[@Hi.Im.Chucky]

Hi neighbor. Virginian here. Can we back out of the contract before we close now knowing that there's termite damage?

[@pmexplore]

@@Hi.Im.Chucky it’s annoying and can be done. Your realtor should be able to sort that out depending on how your deal was structured. I backed out of one not too long ago right before we closed once I found out that the termite damage was horrific.

[@christopherdekonstrukt444]

It's too late for me to take any legal or civil action against the people I bought my house from 3 years ago, I was informed about a risk of termite damage however I didn't see the extent until I began removing sheetrock. I just repaired 11' of wall in the garage myself and now what was supposed to be a window reply has turned into 17' of wall replacement in the master bedroom/bathroom. I've spent more than a year studying framing and termite repair and following code in my area and am saving money doing the work myself.👍

[@SuperEyesofblue]

Is there anyone in Georgia that can help me with this issue?