In the law of property sales (both real estate and private property or mobile goods), latent defect is an error in the property that can not be found by a fairly thorough inspection before the sale.
The general law of property sales is the caveat emptor (let the buyer take care) and the buyer is under general duty to check on their purchase before taking ownership. However, it is understood by law that examination is often insufficient to detect certain deficiencies in products that can only be found through destructive testing or other means that the seller can not reasonably be expected to allow under normal conditions. For example, wooden beams and interior bricks often can not be fully assessed without destructive testing, and it would be unreasonable for the seller to allow the buyer to destroy part of the property to find the defect.
Thus, the law expects that buyers will protect themselves in contracts of sale against defects that they may not expect to assess before buying. Thus, the term "latent flaw" is often used as part of a guarantee clause in a sales contract so that the buyer can recover damages from the seller if a defect appears on the property after the sale. For example, a seller may be required to pay for repairs for such damages.
In Common Law, there is no automatic right for the buyer to claim against the seller for the latent defect when found, no agreement in the contract. Civil Law in some jurisdictions (Quebec, Canada) provides such automatic rights unless the property is sold "unsecured" with respect to its quality. However, if a latent defect is found, there is often an assumption against the seller when a claim is made erroneously that the seller knows about a latent defect. Thus, the seller is required to indicate that he or she is unlikely to know the defect, rather than the buyer should indicate that the seller knows about the defect. However, if it can be shown that the seller can not know about the defect (and does not deliberately blind the possibility) then the buyer's claim will not work.
However, when defects can be found by the buyer through a thorough inspection ("patent defect"), the buyer is unlikely to succeed in a claim against the seller unless the seller is actively taking steps to hide defects from normal checks.
In all cases, where the seller is actively misrepresenting the condition of the property, such as by taking steps to make the examination impossible or by lying about the problem when asked directly, the buyer will almost always succeed unless it can be shown that the buyer is self-aware of the defect and resolves transaction.
In a contract construction a latent defect is defined as a defect that exists at the time of receipt but can not be found by reasonable inspection.
Video Latent defect
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Source of the article : Wikipedia
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