Home Sellers Must Disclose Tainted Water, Michigan Court Rules

Contamination of groundwater below a home is a hazard that a seller must disclose to a buyer prior to sale, even when there’s no known associated contamination of the home through soil or air, the Michigan Court of Appeals said.

The panel of judges, in reviving a lawsuit Tuesday that buyers of a suburban Detroit home in a neighborhood with tainted groundwater filed for lack of disclosure against the sellers, said the situation fits the definition of an “environmental hazard.” Even though the trichloroethylene-tainted groundwater wasn’t the source of ...