What to do if you find defects in the apartment you just bought?

What to do if you find defects in the apartment you just bought?

Sometimes when we buy a second-hand or new construction apartment, the seller agrees to deliver the house in good habitable condition and is obliged to repair all hidden defects that the property may have, if they disable the property for use, or either the buyer would not have bought it or would have paid less for it if they had known before.

If you recently bought a flat and want to claim that the house has cracks, damp or other defects, you should read this article.

According to the Supreme Court, there are four requirements that must be met when claiming a hidden vice.

1º The defect must be hidden and difficult to recognize by the buyer. For this, the buyer is taken into account, who in case of being an architect or working as an expert could have recognized the vice.

2º The buyer must prove that the defect was in the apartment before the sale.

3ª The vice must be serious enough so that, “if they make it inappropriate for the use for which it is intended, or if they diminish this use in such a way that, had they been known by the buyer, they would not have acquired it or would have given it less price for it ”(article 1484);

4th The complaint must be made no later than six months after the home was delivered.

In the event that the hidden defects are demonstrated in the presence of a judge, the buyer can choose to return the home and thereby recover the entire amount, or accept the return of part of the money that will come to the judgment of an expert .

Buying a flat is one of the biggest investments that we will ever make in our lives and to avoid one of these situations it is advisable to make sure that there are no such defects.

Therefore, it is advisable to make the previous visit of the purchase with an expert or architect who makes a complete evaluation of the property, such as talking to the neighbors and / or examining the community spaces that can also give us many clues about the physical state of the building.