Im in Texas. This has to do with a change coming within

Hmmm,

The reason for the federally-required disclosure is because sellers and real estate agents routinely fail to disclose important facts to prospective buyers. In order to allege a fraud or breach of fiduciary against your agent or the seller, you would have to prove that the seller knew about the lead-based paint, and actively concealed the information from you.

Were I representing you, I would want to try to contact the person who sold the property to your seller -- because that person could definitively testify to whether or not your seller knew of the lead-based paint problem. Of course, that seller may be deceased or incapacitated or otherwise unavailable -- making the necessary proof practically impossible to obtain.

Concerning your agent's breach of fiduciary, the agent has a duty to inform his or her client about any visible problem with the property which is within the knowledge or experience of the agent. This could extend to the particular property having lead-based paint. The problem with this circumstance is that the agent will claim that he/she did tell you and it may be the agent's word against yours.

And, while the agent's fiduciary duty would probably give you an edge in the legal proceedings, the issue would also include the fact that the purchase contract offered you the opportunity to conduct an investigation -- which you declined. In my view, that would probably be the clincher, and you would lose, because you would be found contributorily/comparatively negligent sufficient to offset your agent's liability.

That said, I invite you to examine the cost-benefit ratio here. Litigating a breach of fiduciary could cost you $20,000. I doubt that scraping the paint off the walls and repainting will cost any more than that. And, wth the legal action, you have a risk of loss, whereas with the paint job, once it's done, your property value is restored.

Being a lawyer, of course, I would advise you to "sue, sue, sue!!!" But, considering myself an ethical person, the better course is probably to "paint, paint, paint!"

Hope this helps.

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