Opinion ID: 4535545
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Redhibitory Defects

Text: The Novaks also argue the Tilburys negligently and intentionally represented that the condominium had no redhibitory defects. The district court held that the Novaks waived their claims during the purchase and failed to show the Tilburys knew of any alleged defects and purposefully lied on their disclosure form. Indeed, a buyer may waive redhibitory defects, so long as the waiver is clear, unambiguous, and brought to the buyer’s attention. LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 2548. But if the seller “has declared that the thing has quality that he knew it did not have,” thereby intentionally committing fraud, the buyer is not bound by the waiver. Art. 2548; see Shelton, 798 So. 2d at 64. Louisiana’s Residential Property Disclosure Act requires that sellers of real property answer questions about defects by checking boxes marked “yes” (a defect exists), “no” (a defect does not exist), and “no knowledge” (the seller does not know whether a defect exists). LA. STAT. ANN. § 9:3198. “A seller shall not be liable for any error, inaccuracy, or omission of any information required to be delivered to the purchaser in a property disclosure document” if the error 5 Case: 19-30789 Document: 00515422548 Page: 6 Date Filed: 05/20/2020 No. 19-30789 “was not a willful misrepresentation according to the best of the seller’s information, knowledge, and belief.” LA. STAT. ANN. § 9:3198(E). The Louisiana Supreme Court, however, added an important exception to this rule in Valobra v. Nelson, 2014-164 (La. 4/11/14), 136 So. 3d 793, 794 (per curiam). There, the sellers relied on Article 2548 to argue the buyers failed to state a claim alleging redhibitory defects, because the buyers had waived any such claim and the sellers were never in a position to know of any defects. The buyers stressed that the sellers failed to advise them that they were not in a position to know one way or another whether there were defects and, in checking “no,” intentionally misled them into believing that there were in fact no defects. Id. The supreme court agreed with the buyers: the sellers could not avoid their representation of no defects by claiming “we really didn’t know.” Id. The court held that a seller cannot “represent a thing to have no defects in order to procure a waiver of redhibition and then claim that they were not in a position to know whether there were defects or not . . . while using the waiver of redhibition to require the buyer to prove actual knowledge of the defect by the seller.” Id. at 795. Thus, despite the apparent tension with § 9:3198(E), the Louisiana Supreme Court allowed a buyer to bring a claim for redhibitory defects when a seller incorrectly attested that there were no defects on the property disclosure form rather than claiming “no knowledge”—regardless of whether the seller believed the disclosure to be true. 2 The district court was correct that the Novaks have shown no evidence that the Tilburys knew of any alleged redhibitory defects when they selected “no.” Indeed, nothing suggests the Tilburys had access to the 2011 engineering 2 In response to Valobra, the Louisiana Real Estate Commission’s Standardized Forms Committee removed all “no” response check boxes on the form on March 1, 2018. See Effect of the Property Disclosure Document, 1 LA. PRAC. REAL EST. § 10:107 (2d ed.). The Commission further revised the form on January 1, 2020. See Form § 9:123. The forms in this matter, however, predate the revisions. 6 Case: 19-30789 Document: 00515422548 Page: 7 Date Filed: 05/20/2020 No. 19-30789 report St. Maxent commissioned that allegedly revealed defects; the Tilburys only bought the condominium in 2013 and never served on the HOA. Nevertheless, Valobra makes clear that by marking “no” on their property disclosure form, the Tilburys cannot now rest on their genuine lack of knowledge to avoid any liability for intentional misrepresentation. Because the district court granted summary judgment on the narrow ground that the Tilburys lacked any knowledge of redhibitory defects, we vacate summary judgment on this claim. As the parties have not yet fully litigated whether there were, in fact, any redhibitory defects prior to the condominium’s sale, we remand for further proceedings. 3