The Frederiksberg Court has just delivered judgment in a case concerning defects in real property. The claimant buyers, represented by the undersigned attorney Mikkel Wrang, succeeded in their claim for payment of DKK 300,000 in the form of a proportional discount in the purchase price against the seller, as a gravel layer of approx. 175 m2 beneath the tiles at the property proved to be contaminated with oil substances (heavy hydrocarbons), presumably originating from small lumps of asphalt mixed into recycled crushed gravel.
The court found that the buyers were neither aware nor should have been aware of this at the time of the agreement.
Elevated levels of contamination were only detected during subsequent soil tests conducted due to suspicion of pollution. The buyers subsequently incurred costs of DKK 56,042 for remediation, which the court found was the reason why the municipality had not subsequently mapped the site as contaminated.
The court established that the contamination constituted a defect in the property and confirmed the theoretical premise that a proportional discount is not limited to any documentable remediation costs, but instead to the decrease in value at the time of purchase, which was assessed by an expert to be DKK 304,000, and also by an assessor to be DKK 291,092.
The court estimated the decrease in value to be DKK 300,000 and stated that this amount was neither absolute nor, in relation to the purchase price (7%), below the de minimis threshold.
