Seller hid a defect, what should I do?

[Jeremy Benezra]

TL;DR – I bought a house and the seller hid a defect, do I have legal standing to ask the seller for help with the repair costs?

Full story – I purchased a house in March as my new primary residence.  I am a licensed general contractor but still had a home inspector come out and it was worth it as he found a couple things my skilled eye still didn’t see.  One issue that we noticed but couldn’t delve deeper into was the basement bathroom.  At the time of the inspection this toilet was clogged.  This bathroom is on a sump pump to pump the waste up to the height it needs to gravity feed into the house’s septic system.

During negotiations we had many back and forths about the house and one thing I wish I received written but only heard over the phone was reassurance that the basement bathroom does work, the toilet was just clogged during my inspection.  We then took possession of the house.  At that time the toilet was no longer clogged but when you flushed the toilet you could still tell something was wrong either with the toilet or the sump pump.  The toilet successfully flushed only about 1/3 of the time you flushed it.  The other 2/3 of the time the water would rise almost to the rim and then stop there, only slowly draining back to a normal level over the course of several hours.

We moved in and decided we could get by on the other bathrooms until I had the time to fix the basement bathroom.  I then had a hernia surgery, an unusually busy summer of work and investing, and a great summer of outdoors adventures including summiting Mt Rainier, Adams, St Helens, Glacier Peak and many other peaks.  We then had house guests scheduled and I wanted to get that bathroom working.I tried everything I could think of (snaking drains, making adjustments) but couldn’t fix it.  I recently emailed the prior owner asking if there was a trick or something to the bathroom and they told me there were some inconsistencies in the bathroom.

I had the plumber I normally use out but he couldn’t figure out the problem.  I had a waste specialist come out and he pulled the toilet, trying many things, and after taking the whole sump pump system apart we both are in agreement that this sump basin and pump aren’t designed to be installed in this type of installation.  He charged me $400 for his several hours of time to investigate the problem.

I’ve since ordered a new sump basin and pump with grinder and in 2 weeks he’s going to tear the old one out and install the new one.  By the time he does that and I patch the concrete floor and retile everything I bet I’ll be out about $5000.

Do I have any legal ground to stand on go to the prior owner and ask for compensation for these defects that were hidden from me at the time of the sale?

The major thing going against my efforts to get recompensated is the fact that my wife and I lived there for 6 months before bringing up this issue.

What do you think I should do?  Contact a real estate attorney?