{"id":119,"date":"2022-08-05T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=119"},"modified":"2024-01-04T21:33:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T21:33:41","slug":"does-an-as-is-clause-in-a-contract-of-sale-immunize-the-land-seller-from-a-fraud-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2022\/08\/05\/does-an-as-is-clause-in-a-contract-of-sale-immunize-the-land-seller-from-a-fraud-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Does an \u201cas is\u201d clause in a contract of sale immunize the land seller from a fraud claim?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Continuing the conflicts among state courts on this question, a Florida court chose a \u201cyes\u201d answer to the question of whether a seller can get away with fraud if the land sales contract contains an \u201cas is\u201d clause or a \u201cmerger clause\u201d making the express terms of the written agreement the only legitimate source of obligations between the parties.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/casetext.com\/case\/fla-holding-4800-llc-v-lauderhill-mall-inv-llc\">Fla. Holding 4800 v. Lauderhill Mall Inv.<\/a>, LLC, 317 So. 3d 121 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In so doing, the court&nbsp;adopts the majority rule in Danann Realty Corp. v. Harris, 157 N.E.2d 597 (N.J. 1959), and rejects the position of dissenting Judge Fuld, a view that has been adopted in several other states and may be the more popular rule now, see Snyder v. Lovercheck, 992 P.2d 1079 (Wyo. 1999); Golden Cone Concepts, Inc. v. Villa Linda Mall, Ltd, 820 P2d 1323 (NM 1991); TIAA Global Invs., LLC v. One Astoria Square LLC, , 7 N.Y.S.3d 1 (App Div 2015); and Cirillo v. Slomin\u2019s Inc., 768 N.Y.S.2d 759 (Sup. Ct. 2003).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The argument for denying a fraud claim is that the buyer waived the right to rely on oral statements (or written statements outside the contract) in signing the agreement. The argument for allowing a fraud claim is that an agreement to the rely on the written agreement is not permission to be defrauded since fraud negates consent making then notion of a free contract senseless.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/real-estate-transactions\/\" rel=\"tag\">Real Estate Transactions<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing the conflicts among state courts on this question, a Florida court chose a \u201cyes\u201d answer to the question of whether a seller can get away with fraud if the land sales contract contains an \u201cas is\u201d clause or a \u201cmerger clause\u201d making the express terms of the written agreement the only legitimate source of obligations between the parties.&nbsp;Fla. Holding 4800 v. Lauderhill Mall Inv., LLC, 317 So. 3d 121 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2021). In so doing, the court&nbsp;adopts the majority rule in Danann Realty Corp. v. Harris, 157 N.E.2d 597 (N.J. 1959), and rejects the position of dissenting Judge Fuld, a view that has been adopted in several other states and may be the more popular rule now, see Snyder v. Lovercheck, 992 P.2d 1079 (Wyo. 1999); Golden Cone Concepts, Inc. v. Villa Linda Mall, Ltd, 820 P2d 1323 (NM 1991); TIAA Global Invs., LLC v. One Astoria &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2022\/08\/05\/does-an-as-is-clause-in-a-contract-of-sale-immunize-the-land-seller-from-a-fraud-claim\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Does an \u201cas is\u201d clause in a contract of sale immunize the land seller from a fraud claim?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-estate-transactions"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}