New Sod Laid Over Stumps Prior to House Sale

[Louies mom]

My question involves real estate located in the State of: California

I recently purchased a beautiful 40 year old home, recently remodeled. The "flippers" did a great job making the property look like perfection. I had a home inspection and was aware of the minor issues inside the home, easily fixed and not worth losing the property over. The issue I have is this: At the time of closing the front yard looked perfect. Freshly laid sod, trimmed trees, etc. Now 30 days later all the grass is dying on the perimeter of the front lawn. I hired a gardener, not a "mow and blow guy" an actual gardener, and he has determined that the "flippers" had cut down pine trees that had lined the entire front yard and then threw sod over the stumps. Thus the reason the grass is dying, sod cannot grow on top of wood. Do I have any recourse? It is not covered under the American Home Shield policy I purchased.

Thank you for any suggestions.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Landscaping issues of this type are not normally things you would see described on a seller's disclosure statement. I expect that, if asked, the sellers would argue that they "didn't know" that the tree roots would kill the new sod (but as flippers, odds are they didn't care).

You can try contacting them to see what they have to say; you can also try talking to landscapers about your options and the cost of those options (from the presumed high end, drilling out the stumps, bringing in topsoil and putting down new sod, to putting in new trees or vegetation in the affected areas that will cover the problem without requiring the removal of the stumps.)