3 days before closing and I want to back out..can I?

[Anonymous]

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/3-ways-to-mess-up-a-home-mortgage-closing.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Even if a real estate agent is a lawyer by training, they cannot provide legal advice to a client. The first thing a realtor does to "manage these types of scenarios" (which are very rare) is to advise the client to contact a lawyer who actually knows how to "manage these types of scenarios." In my very long career with nearly a thousand transactions, only one buyer pulled out of the contract at the last minute. The seller took her $10,000 deposit; successfully sued her for $50,000 in damages, and she paid nearly $30,000 in legal fees for herself and the seller's lawyer. This was in 1995.

Wow. That was a lot of money in 1995. You could have a comfortable house in Chevy Chase village for 600k in those days.

Why did the buyer back out?

The house was $450,000 and was in Old Town Alexandria. It is probably about $1.2M to $1.3M today. She never provided a good reason to me, her lawyer, the seller or the judge.

[Anonymous]

Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

The only good advice here is to contact a real estate attorney. The rest of it might be good advice if it were several weeks before closing and there were contingencies that weren't satisfied. I think the chances of getting sued are pretty high, particularly if the seller is buying a house and has a closing the same day. Real estate contracts are usually specifically enforceable, unless they specifically provide otherwise (meaning that they can force you to buy the house).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also if your seller is a lawyer-You are f*kd. And its the DC area-its possible. Remember if they are a lawyer they don't have to pay for one-it makes a difference in their likelihood to sue you.

That's not necessarily true. There are lots of lawyers, including me, who wouldn't know the first thing about litigating a case like this. DH is a litigator, so he could do it, but it is not his area of expertise and his time would probably be better spent working than trying to do this on his own.

So we are a two lawyer family that would likely not handle this case on their own and would probably need to expend legal fees to sue. Doesn't mean I might not do it, but it does factor into the equation.

[Anonymous]

You might get sued since you deserve to get sued. When you deserve to get sued you usually lose in court. It's common sense. You are legally and morally obligated to follow through on your voluntarily agreed to contract. If you end up not liking the house then sell it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

I had an experience similar to what the PP has described: a buyer wanted to walk away, our realtor had weak knees and insisted that we return the earnest money. We had a big argument about it but the funds ultimately were not in our bank account. It seemed that he just didn't want to be caught up in any legal battle, and wanted to play nice with the buyer's realtor. We did finally agree to return the EM and promptly fired our realtor.

So I do believe it depends on how strong your realtor is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

I had an experience similar to what the PP has described: a buyer wanted to walk away, our realtor had weak knees and insisted that we return the earnest money. We had a big argument about it but the funds ultimately were not in our bank account. It seemed that he just didn't want to be caught up in any legal battle, and wanted to play nice with the buyer's realtor. We did finally agree to return the EM and promptly fired our realtor.

So I do believe it depends on how strong your realtor is.

Why did you cave to your realtor's wishes? There are pros and cons to holding out for the EMD and/or suing to get damages. But the position of your realtor on this should be virtually irrelevant. If you wanted to fight, you should have reminded your realtor that he worked for you and you were going to stand by your contractual rights even if it made things awkward for him with the other realtor, which it really shouldn't have since the other realtor should have understood you were well within your rights to insist on the EMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

I had an experience similar to what the PP has described: a buyer wanted to walk away, our realtor had weak knees and insisted that we return the earnest money. We had a big argument about it but the funds ultimately were not in our bank account. It seemed that he just didn't want to be caught up in any legal battle, and wanted to play nice with the buyer's realtor. We did finally agree to return the EM and promptly fired our realtor.

So I do believe it depends on how strong your realtor is.

Why did you cave to your realtor's wishes? There are pros and cons to holding out for the EMD and/or suing to get damages. But the position of your realtor on this should be virtually irrelevant. If you wanted to fight, you should have reminded your realtor that he worked for you and you were going to stand by your contractual rights even if it made things awkward for him with the other realtor, which it really shouldn't have since the other realtor should have understood you were well within your rights to insist on the EMD.

Because the seller realtor is a part of the transaction. It's not a productive endeavor to go into a battle where I have no allies. It became apparent to me that my realtor was willing to lose me as a customer than to help me keep the EM. Whatever his reasons, I did not care. My goal as a seller was to sell the house. I had already wasted time up to that point, I did not want to get drawn into a prolonged battle - lawyers do not take these type of cases on contingency.

[Anonymous]

I imagine your EMD check has already been cashed. It's not like they can just rip up your check like they would earlier in the transaction. What did you do, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

I had an experience similar to what the PP has described: a buyer wanted to walk away, our realtor had weak knees and insisted that we return the earnest money. We had a big argument about it but the funds ultimately were not in our bank account. It seemed that he just didn't want to be caught up in any legal battle, and wanted to play nice with the buyer's realtor. We did finally agree to return the EM and promptly fired our realtor.

So I do believe it depends on how strong your realtor is.

Why did you cave to your realtor's wishes? There are pros and cons to holding out for the EMD and/or suing to get damages. But the position of your realtor on this should be virtually irrelevant. If you wanted to fight, you should have reminded your realtor that he worked for you and you were going to stand by your contractual rights even if it made things awkward for him with the other realtor, which it really shouldn't have since the other realtor should have understood you were well within your rights to insist on the EMD.

Because the seller realtor is a part of the transaction. It's not a productive endeavor to go into a battle where I have no allies. It became apparent to me that my realtor was willing to lose me as a customer than to help me keep the EM. Whatever his reasons, I did not care. My goal as a seller was to sell the house. I had already wasted time up to that point, I did not want to get drawn into a prolonged battle - lawyers do not take these type of cases on contingency.

So, it sounds like it wasn't your realtor wanting to play nice with the other realtor. You wanted to sell your house and you didn't want to incur legal fees - both very reasonable objectives. And you understood that by trying to keep the EMD and/or sue, you wouldn't be able to sell your house until the dispute was resolved and you would likely incur legal fess. So, given your priorities, you decided to return the EMD.

What you did was perfectly reasonable given your priorities, but I don't think it was reasonable to say that you acted because your realtor had "weak knees and insisted" you return the EMD. You acted in your best interest, as you now describe them, which is fine.

[Anonymous]

I had an experience with this once. The buyer basically did an idiotic thing, opened up a bunch of credit cards, the mortgage fell through and we had to give them their deposit back. Financing contingency. We did end up selling a month later to a cash buyer.

People who are chanting lawsuit don't know how expensive and slow it is. Yes, it feels good to say I'll sue your ass, but in reality, a deal isn't done until it's done in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

OP: Please do not take legal advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "council" and "counsel."

I had an experience similar to what the PP has described: a buyer wanted to walk away, our realtor had weak knees and insisted that we return the earnest money. We had a big argument about it but the funds ultimately were not in our bank account. It seemed that he just didn't want to be caught up in any legal battle, and wanted to play nice with the buyer's realtor. We did finally agree to return the EM and promptly fired our realtor.

So I do believe it depends on how strong your realtor is.

Why did you cave to your realtor's wishes? There are pros and cons to holding out for the EMD and/or suing to get damages. But the position of your realtor on this should be virtually irrelevant. If you wanted to fight, you should have reminded your realtor that he worked for you and you were going to stand by your contractual rights even if it made things awkward for him with the other realtor, which it really shouldn't have since the other realtor should have understood you were well within your rights to insist on the EMD.

Because the seller realtor is a part of the transaction. It's not a productive endeavor to go into a battle where I have no allies. It became apparent to me that my realtor was willing to lose me as a customer than to help me keep the EM. Whatever his reasons, I did not care. My goal as a seller was to sell the house. I had already wasted time up to that point, I did not want to get drawn into a prolonged battle - lawyers do not take these type of cases on contingency.

So, it sounds like it wasn't your realtor wanting to play nice with the other realtor. You wanted to sell your house and you didn't want to incur legal fees - both very reasonable objectives. And you understood that by trying to keep the EMD and/or sue, you wouldn't be able to sell your house until the dispute was resolved and you would likely incur legal fess. So, given your priorities, you decided to return the EMD.

What you did was perfectly reasonable given your priorities, but I don't think it was reasonable to say that you acted because your realtor had "weak knees and insisted" you return the EMD. You acted in your best interest, as you now describe them, which is fine.

NP here but it sound like PP's realtor certainly could have taken a harder negotiating stance and at least gotten some of the EMD to offset the carrying costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contact a real estate Attorney and discuss options.

The chance you will get sued is low. The reason being is its not worth it to the seller for the cost of retaining their own council and then going to court in a few months and preparing for the case.

If the sellers goal is to sell the house and the house is in a decent location, their real estate agent will likely advise them to just return the EM and move on. The agent knows that the buyer can easily stall at closing or find some issue to prevent closing. Better to not waste everyone's time going to a closing that will likely not happen. In the time it will take the seller to get to court, the probability is high that they will have already sold the to someone else and it won't be worth their time and expense to go through a drawn out court case.

Don't try to game the odds on whether they'll sue, because you have no idea how that will play out. If you back out and they're quickly able to find a new buyer at or very close to same price and don't have any other financial losses as a result, the odds of getting sued are low. If, on the other hand, they had multiple offers at our around your contract price back when you went under contract in the busy summer season, but then had to put it back on the market in a slow fall season and the only offer they get is for $70k less than what you had contracted to pay, plus they lost their own EM on their new home because they'd waived their home sale contingency once all of the contingencies were cleared on your purchase agreement, but then had to back-out on their own purchase because you did, you very well might get sued for their financial losses.