Buyer backing out of no contingency contract

[Anonymous]

I meant "lose"

[Anonymous]

Tough situation, as the deposit you accepted was missing a zero. $2k isn't enough for you to fight much over, except until you resolve this you can't sell the house to anyone else. The "buyers" might use this fact to get you to come down on price.

As others have said, time to lawyer up and find out exactly where you stand.

[Anonymous]

I'd say time to cut your losses and get your house back on the market. "Lawyering up" over $2000 does not seem worth tying up the marketing of the home (although I'll admit that I assumed that $2000--or any earnest $$- would flow directly to the sellers in the even the buyers backed out).

[Anonymous]

They are in breach of contract. A letter from a lawyer to the buyers stating that if they don't go through with the contract, you will sue them and pursue every type of possible remedy might cause them to reconsider walking away from the contract. Also, if you re-list the house and your highest offer is less than the contract price, you could sue the buyers for the difference between the contract price and their offer.

Bottom line- you need a lawyer ASAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say time to cut your losses and get your house back on the market. "Lawyering up" over $2000 does not seem worth tying up the marketing of the home (although I'll admit that I assumed that $2000--or any earnest $$- would flow directly to the sellers in the even the buyers backed out).

The question is whether they think they can get more than the purchase price if they put the house back on the market.

[Anonymous]

my guess is the buyers found 2 houses on the market they liked and put in offers on both. your agent should not have recommended an offer with such low earnest money. Great strategy on their part to hedge their bets. They don't give a shit about the 2k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my guess is the buyers found 2 houses on the market they liked and put in offers on both. your agent should not have recommended an offer with such low earnest money. Great strategy on their part to hedge their bets. They don't give a shit about the 2k.

Do agents allow their clients to do this (assuming the client only wants to buy one house and not two)? It never occurred to me to ask my agent to let me put in more than one offer because I could get caught with my hand in the cookie jar if both accepted before I had the chance to withdraw the other offer.

[Anonymous]

This can be very bad for the seller especially if there was a substantial period of time between the contract signing and closing. If the becomes a common occurrence you can expect larger security deposits, new contractual language about security deposits being automatically forfeited and a release automatically granted if the buyer walks away, and very quick closings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get over it OP. This happens all the time. Just relist and move on. It doesn't mean that your house will sell for less now.

We were in a situation where we had to get out last fall and I'm sure the sellers wondered why. We suddenly got jobs a couple of counties over and just needed out. We loved the house, but needed shorter commutes. The jobs came out of the blue, so it wasn't something we could have planned. The house sold for 20k more than we were under contract for, so I'm sure the sellers were pleased we walked.

Ah, one of the "entitled" has now shown himself/herself.

Get over it? That's not how these things work.

[Anonymous]

Your realtor effed up big time with that tiny deposit. I would get the deposit back and--if the house sells for less than the original offer--take it out of her commission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my guess is the buyers found 2 houses on the market they liked and put in offers on both. your agent should not have recommended an offer with such low earnest money. Great strategy on their part to hedge their bets. They don't give a shit about the 2k.

Wow, you are probably right. $2K is awfully low for earnest money. Not very earnest...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your realtor effed up big time with that tiny deposit. I would get the deposit back and--if the house sells for less than the original offer--take it out of her commission.

+1. a solid offer an offer with just 2K down? with our offer we put 70K down (on a 700K home). just get out as soon as possible and put your house on the market. fighting for months over $2000 will cost you much more

[Anonymous]

I guess the buyers found a better house. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are in breach of contract. A letter from a lawyer to the buyers stating that if they don't go through with the contract, you will sue them and pursue every type of possible remedy might cause them to reconsider walking away from the contract. Also, if you re-list the house and your highest offer is less than the contract price, you could sue the buyers for the difference between the contract price and their offer.

Bottom line- you need a lawyer ASAP.

I am not an attorney or an agent, but this is not exactly correct. They aren't in breach yet. Since every other contingency has been met, they wouldn't be in breach until they fail to close on the closing date. So if you come in and say you are going to sue and try to force them to honor the contract and buy your house, then they have every right to keep the house under contract until at least the contracted closing date and probably after if you pursue legal action.
Coming to you early may piss you off, but from a practical standpoint, they are trying to get their some or all of their money back, but you get to put your house back on the market.

And forget about suing for specific performance and trying to force someone to buy your house. No court in the world would make someone do that.

So the question to the OP is, does he want to sell his house, or does he want to try to stick it to this buyer? If he wants the former, the choice is clear. Release the contract and move on.

And to be honest, if it is early on and the market is hot, what is really lost by coming off the market for a week or two? If you end up selling anyway, then the actual damages done to you are pretty minimal. Certainly not worth hiring lawyers and what not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And forget about suing for specific performance and trying to force someone to buy your house. No court in the world would make someone do that.

I think this is incorrect. All real property is presumed to be unique and specific performance is a plausible outcome. Having said that, likely not worth pursuing unless their offer was well above marked; the litigation costs would make it a losing proposition.