Singer Rihanna is suing over a California hillside home she claims has such serious structural defects that it is uninhabitable.

She is suing Prudential California Realty and several companies that designed and inspected the home near Los Angeles.

The S&M singer’s lawsuit claims she would not have paid $6.9 million for the home in 2009 if she had known about the problems.

She claims water leaked into several rooms of the house from a balcony that lacks the proper slope and drainage after a rainstorm early last year. The suit states the damage left the home “uninhabitable”.

Landmark Design Group, which remodelled the home, has failed to make necessary repairs, she says.