Stambovsky v. Ackley New York, at the time, adhered to property law doctrine of "caveat emptor". The appellate court reversed the trial court's decision regarding the rescission action, however, as it went on to note that "haunting" was not a condition that a buyer or potential buyer of real property can and should be able to ascertain upon reasonable inspection of the property. According to the court, though the doctrine of "caveat emptor" would normally operate to bar a rescission action, causing seller to have no duty to disclose information about the property to be sold (but also preventing the seller from affirmatively
Caveat emptor defects or otherwise made material misrepresentations amounting to fraud. Before statutory law, the buyer had no express warranty ensuring the quality of goods. In the UK, common law requires that goods must be "fit for the particular purpose" and of "merchantable quality", per Section 15 of the Sale of Goods Act but this implied warranty can be difficult to enforce and may not apply to all products. Hence, buyers are still advised to be cautious. The modern trend in the U.S. is that the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose applies in the real-estate context to only the