Question: I am a first-time home buyer. The listing sheet and financing documents for the home said it was in Reston, VA. But at closing, I found out that the house is actually in Herndon, VA, the neighboring city. I now own this house, but don't want to live in Herndon. What can I do at this point?

John: If you believed real-estate advertisements, you'd think that all agents were intrepid, all-knowing guides whose sole purpose in life is to take clueless buyers by the hand and lead them confidently through the minefields of offers, counteroffers, escrows and settlement.

But in fact, plenty of agents are pretty clueless themselves -- and a few are lazy to boot. It appears that you may have become entangled with the latter, since it is pretty easy to determine where a property is actually located, in Virginia and elsewhere. You simply look it up in the tax records. These days, this information is simple to get online by checking the taxing jurisdiction's official Web site. Indeed, the listing agent should have checked this information before entering the annual property taxes on the listing sheet.

That said, there's probably not a lot you can do now, according to two local lawyers. Beth Godwin-Jones, a Richmond Virginia attorney, says that listing sheets typically have a statement that the information printed on them is "not warranted" -- so if something really matters to you, it's up to you to check it out yourself. While you might possibly have a claim for negligent misrepresentation, you'd have to prove how you were hurt by the switch -- for instance, if you were led astray as to which school district your children would be attending, or if a requirement of your job is that you live within the limits of a particular city.

But there may be another quite plausible reason for the mistake besides agent laziness. Reston Virginia attorney Anne-Marie Magruder says that Herndon is actually the mailing address for pards of Reston, so mix-ups like these aren't unusual.  Unless actual deceit was involved -- for example, the real-estate agent and the seller knowingly lied to you about hidden easements or setback line violations -- you probably wouldn't get anywhere with a lawsuit. "It sounds like no one was trying to snooker or defraud you here," he says.

So, chalk this one up to experience, and learn to live by the credo I use when dealing with all self-proclaimed guides through minefields: Trust, but verify. And when the time comes to sell this house, make sure that the listing sheet says Herndon.