Köparens möjligheter att utkräva ansvar av säljaren och mäklaren vid brister i förvärvad fastighet

Sammanfattning: This essay examines to which extent a buyer of property can hold either the seller or the realtor, or both, accountable in cases where the real estate deviates from what the buyer expected at the time of the purchase. The investigation shows that a seller’s and a realtor’s responsibility differ, but in some cases overlap. As regards to the question whether a buyer can hold a seller liable due to a deficiency in the property, the matter is governed by the content of the parties’ contract. The subject of the agreement is based primarily on what the parties have negotiated between themselves. In addition, the inquiry displays that if the seller has hired a realtor, the seller can also be bound be the information the agent provides to the buyer. The outer extent of the information which the seller can be bound by, is such information that the seller should have known that the realtor had provided to the buyer, for example information displayed in descriptions of the estate as well as advertisements. In the common case that the parties have not at all, or only partly, regulated which deficiencies that should constitute a legal responsibility for the seller, the rules of the Swedish Land Code will fill out their agreement. These rules stipulate that the buyer, depending on the circumstances in the factual case, has the right to hold the seller liable for several different kind of deficiencies in the property, such as deficiencies that deviate from what the buyer had rea-son to expect at the time of the purchase. For a buyer to be able to hold a realtor accountable for a deficiency in the property, the real estate agent must have broken the estate agent code of con-duct with intent or negligence during the sales process. Therefore, the essay includes a comprehensive investigation regarding both the content of the estate agent code of conduct and how the negligence assessment is carried out. The inquiry shows that the estate agent code of conduct prescribes several obligations for the realtor towards the buyer, such as a duty to inform the pur-chaser of special conditions regarding the property as well as giving adequate advice to the buyer. As a result of this, the realtor can be liable to pay damages to the buyer, under certain circumstances, if the real estate agent has for ex-ample provided incorrect information about the property or neglected to share important information about the real estate to the buyer. By analysing practice, it follows that there are some general criteria for how a careful realtor should act and when, deviating from these, the agent is considered to have acted negligently. Furthermore, it shows that the judicial bodies also apply ”the Hand rule” to assess whether the realtor has acted neg-ligent or not. Therefore, a real estate agent’s duty to act carefully may vary depending on the likelihood that the realtor’s action will cause harm, the size of the harm in question, the real estate agent’s knowledge about the risk as well as to what extent it was possible to prevent the injury.