Seller Disclosure Liability in Real Estate Transactions

A lower court had ruled that a seller who failed to disclose a known, substantial defect in a property, despite the buyer's explicit inquiry about property conditions, was liable for damages, reasoning that the nondisclosure constituted a fraudulent concealment under the law governing sales contracts. The reviewing court overturned this decision, holding that while a seller has a duty to disclose known latent defects, a failure to disclose a defect that could have been discovered through an ordinary inspection, especially when the buyer had the opportunity to inspect, does not automatically constitute fraudulent concealment unless there was a deliberate act intended to mislead the buyer beyond mere silence regarding an obvious issue.