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Under Georgia law, the alleged victim of fraud is required to exercise reasonable due diligence to discover the fraud. If he doesn't exercise that duty to discover an open and obvious condition, his claim for fraud fails. I've handled, and won, a number of real estate fraud cases on this basis. Fraud is only recoverable if the defect is latent and/or the owner took steps to conceal the defect. If the defect is patent, the buyer has the duty to discover the defect. A number of Georgia cases follow this line of reasoning: One case required the buyer to discover the zoning of a property when the seller misrepresented the zoning under the theory that the zoning maps were open to the public and thus discoverable. Another case found that a seller was not liable for fraud for misrepresentations about the roof of the property when damaged shingles were noticeable as well as water stains inside the residence. I won a summary judgment motion on a case where the buyer accused my client of misrepresenting the size of the lot and square footage of the commercial property since this information was readily available on the property tax records (same issue in Trump's case). "When a party fails to examine any of the public records available to him which would lead to the 'discovery' of a fraud, then a party fails to exercise due diligence as a matter of law." "A plaintiff, in exercising reasonable diligence in the discovery of fraud is charged with notice of every fact shown by the public records, and is presumed to know every other fact which an examination suggested by the record would have disclosed."
I can't recall if this is the law of North Carolina since I haven't practiced law in NC in many years - I'm guessing it's not given your reaction. But I ask first before accusing another attorney of being an idiot.
