Rickard v. Coulimore, 2022 OK 9 (Okla. 2022) In this Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act (RPCDA) case, the Oklahoma Supreme Court holds that residential property sold by the trustees a revocable living trust is entirely exempt from the RPCDA even when the living trust makers (the “settlors”) are also the trustees and beneficiaries of the trust, as long as the trustees are not occupants of the subject property.
While this means that no RPCDA Form need be furnished by the trust as seller, it also means that the RPCDA is no longer the “sole and exclusive remedy” for civil actions for a seller’s failure to disclose to the buyer a defect which was actually known to the seller prior to acceptance of an offer to purchase. See 60 O.S.2011 § 837(A)-(B); White v. Lim, 2009 OK 79, ¶ 17, 224 P.3d 679, 685.
The Court found the transaction was exempt from the RPCDA, pursuant to 60 O.S. § 838(A)(3), as it related to the inapplicability of the RPCDA, thus allowing the aggrieved seller to pursue common law remedies with no RPCDA limitation on the buyer’s damages.