Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law (“RESDL”) requires most residential sellers to disclose known material defects in a property before an agreement of sale is signed. For buyers, the Seller’s Disclosure Statement provides important information about the condition of a home before purchase. However, for sellers, they may also create potential liability when known defects are not accurately disclosed.
In Hollinger v. Dietrich, 2026, the Pennsylvania Superior Court recently clarified, how long a buyer has to bring a claim under the RESDL and whether the Seller’s Disclosure Statement can be used to support additional claims after that period has expired.
The Dispute
The buyers in Hollinger purchased a residential property in 2017. Before signing the Agreement of Sale, they received a Seller’s Disclosure Statement indicating, among other things, that the seller was unaware of water infiltration in the basement. After settlement, the buyers experienced basement flooding and later alleged that the property had a history of water infiltration that had not been disclosed.
The buyers filed suit in March 2020, asserting claims under the RESDL, as well as claims for fraud, breach of contract, negligence, and violations of Pennsylvania’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (“UTPCPL”).
The timing of their lawsuit proved critical.
The RESDL’s Two-Year Deadline Is a Statute of Repose
The RESDL provides that an action for damages arising from a violation of the statute must be commenced within two years after final settlement. Although the statute refers to this deadline as a “statute of limitations,” the Superior Court held that it operates as a statute of repose.
That distinction is significant. A statute of limitations generally begins to run when a claim accrues and may, in some circumstances, be extended by the discovery rule or equitable tolling. A statute of repose establishes a firm deadline tied to a particular event, regardless of when the alleged injury is discovered.
Under the RESDL, that event is a final settlement. Because the buyers filed suit more than two years after settlement, their RESDL claim was barred. Neither the discovery rule nor equitable tolling could extend the statutory deadline.
Buyers Cannot Use the Disclosure Statement to Avoid the Deadline
The Superior Court also addressed an important question of first impression: whether a buyer may rely on representations in a RESDL-mandated Seller’s Disclosure Statement to support other causes of action after the RESDL claim itself is barred.
The buyers argued that even if their RESDL claim was untimely, they should still be permitted to use the Seller’s Disclosure Statement to support their remaining claims. The Superior Court disagreed.
Although the RESDL does not eliminate other remedies that may otherwise be available to a buyer, the Court concluded that allowing the buyers to rely on the statutory disclosure statement after expiration of the two-year repose period would effectively extend liability beyond the deadline established by the legislature.
Additionally, the Court rejected the argument that the Seller’s Disclosure Statement became part of the parties’ Agreement of Sale simply because the agreement referenced the RESDL. Because the agreement contained an integration clause and did not expressly incorporate the disclosure statement, the representations in the disclosure did not become terms of the contract.
What Hollinger Means for Pennsylvania Buyers and Sellers
For buyers, Hollinger sends a clear message: act promptly when a potential undisclosed defect is discovered. The RESDL’s two-year period runs from final settlement, not from the date the defect is discovered. Delaying an investigation or potential claim may therefore result in losing the RESDL claim altogether.
For sellers, the decision provides greater certainty regarding how long liability may arise from the disclosures required by the RESDL. It does not, however, excuse incomplete or inaccurate disclosures or eliminate other potentially viable claims supported by independent evidence.
Hollinger provides an important lesson for residential real estate transactions: what is disclosed matters, but when the buyer acts on it also matters.
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