Buyer backing out of no contingency contract

[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.

However you decide to proceed (after talking to the settlement attorney first, as advised by the agent who advised you early in this thread), I would get a different agent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wow...no. If you're trying to buy a house then yes, specific performance to get your unique house. For the seller, the damages would be the difference between the contract price and the price the seller gets when they put their house back on the market and possibly some small amount for any extra costs incurred while doing so (not really sure what those would be though).

[Anonymous]

In this area, $2K is a pretty normal deposit sum for a house with a price tag of $390K. It's really not normal to put down large deposits in this area, although that may change if buyers start flaking on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wow...no. If you're trying to buy a house then yes, specific performance to get your unique house. For the seller, the damages would be the difference between the contract price and the price the seller gets when they put their house back on the market and possibly some small amount for any extra costs incurred while doing so (not really sure what those would be though).

Certainly the seller could choose to sue for damages and frame its claim in such a way, but I had thought that most states allowed a seller to sue for specific performance on grounds that the remedies under the contract should be reciprocal. A quick google search suggests this is the case, although I am not a real estate attorney, and the remedy is not commonly pursued because most buyers back out when they don't have enough money to complete the sale in any event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wow...no. If you're trying to buy a house then yes, specific performance to get your unique house. For the seller, the damages would be the difference between the contract price and the price the seller gets when they put their house back on the market and possibly some small amount for any extra costs incurred while doing so (not really sure what those would be though).

Certainly the seller could choose to sue for damages and frame its claim in such a way, but I had thought that most states allowed a seller to sue for specific performance on grounds that the remedies under the contract should be reciprocal. A quick google search suggests this is the case, although I am not a real estate attorney, and the remedy is not commonly pursued because most buyers back out when they don't have enough money to complete the sale in any event.

Suing for specific performance makes absolutely no sense. Seller would have to carry the house for the duration of the lawsuit until judgment.

[Anonymous]

OP here - officially backed out and lost their piddly earnest deposit and that's it. Our house is in east county so not the best location, but not horrible. We were surprised toget an offer so quick especially one that waived the inspection. We learned;

- A buyer can always back out of a contract and the burden of enforcement lies with the seller and in most cases, not worth it
- Contracts mean nothing
- Must get higher earnest deposit

I am upset because we had another offer and now want to go back to this agent and see if the buyers are still interested but now they might be wodnering why the deal fell thru, too.

Thanks for your input.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - officially backed out and lost their piddly earnest deposit and that's it. Our house is in east county so not the best location, but not horrible. We were surprised toget an offer so quick especially one that waived the inspection. We learned;

- A buyer can always back out of a contract and the burden of enforcement lies with the seller and in most cases, not worth it
- Contracts mean nothing
- Must get higher earnest deposit

I am upset because we had another offer and now want to go back to this agent and see if the buyers are still interested but now they might be wodnering why the deal fell thru, too.

Thanks for your input.

It's the agent who commented.

Damn them. I'm sorry. I'm glad you at least got the $2000, but it doesn't help for the lost time and lost opportunity. Ask your agent to activate the listing asap, see if you can catch anyone before they head out of town or any in-towners for Memorial Day. I don't think the market will crash with summer, but it was a long cold winter and people seem to be ready to start their summers from the unusual amount beach traffic in April.

[Anonymous]

Agent again.

I was afraid that what you stated as a conclusion is true: Contracts do mean nothing.

It's complete bullshit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - officially backed out and lost their piddly earnest deposit and that's it. Our house is in east county so not the best location, but not horrible. We were surprised toget an offer so quick especially one that waived the inspection. We learned;

- A buyer can always back out of a contract and the burden of enforcement lies with the seller and in most cases, not worth it
- Contracts mean nothing
- Must get higher earnest deposit

I am upset because we had another offer and now want to go back to this agent and see if the buyers are still interested but now they might be wodnering why the deal fell thru, too.

Thanks for your input.

It might help you feel better if you hear that it took us three, yes THREE ratified contracts to sell a place a few years ago. The market was not exceptionally hot and the particular property had some negatives, although those were not the reasons that the buyers backed out. To our surprise as soon as one buyer backed out, another one stepped in. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agent again.

I was afraid that what you stated as a conclusion is true: Contracts do mean nothing.

It's complete bullshit.

In what way do contracts mean nothing? It sounds like the OP got everything he was contractually entitled to. I'd be very surprised if his actual damages exceed that.
I'm not sure what the issue is. The buyer for whatever reason couldn't buy the house and forfeited the earnest money as spelled out in the contract. Sometimes things happen. It sounds like the buyer was above board. They could have tied up the house for a long time to try to get earnest money back.

If anything, it's on the seller/listing agent for not getting more of a deposit. Sure it's disappointing, but it's time to move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - officially backed out and lost their piddly earnest deposit and that's it. Our house is in east county so not the best location, but not horrible. We were surprised toget an offer so quick especially one that waived the inspection. We learned;

- A buyer can always back out of a contract and the burden of enforcement lies with the seller and in most cases, not worth it
- Contracts mean nothing
- Must get higher earnest deposit

I am upset because we had another offer and now want to go back to this agent and see if the buyers are still interested but now they might be wodnering why the deal fell thru, too.

Thanks for your input.

And, the real estate attorney you consulted. S/he will sue the flaky buyers for any price differential, yes?

[Anonymous]

6:58- huh? As a pp pointed out, the OP is keeping the earnest money due to the buyer pulling out. That's all the OP gets, and while a very frustrating experience, I think that is the expected (and "fair") outcome.

Yes, we all wish the earnest money was a larger amount for the OP. But it wasn't.

[Anonymous]

The mistake was to accept EMD of $2K. Who wouldn't walk away from that instead of spending another $390K for something you're not sure about? Lesson learned and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this area, $2K is a pretty normal deposit sum for a house with a price tag of $390K. It's really not normal to put down large deposits in this area, although that may change if buyers start flaking on a regular basis.

Umm, no it is not. We sold our place in the low $200K range. We had two offers, one with earnest money of $5K and one with $10K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6:58- huh? As a pp pointed out, the OP is keeping the earnest money due to the buyer pulling out. That's all the OP gets, and while a very frustrating experience, I think that is the expected (and "fair") outcome.

Yes, we all wish the earnest money was a larger amount for the OP. But it wasn't.

New poster (a lawyer, but not a real estate lawyer). I'd imagine that in addition to the EMD loss, OP also could sue for breach of contract, and claim as damages whatever injury she suffered. She had a contract to sell for $390, and let's say the best contract she can get now from another sale is $370. I'd imagine she can sue for the $20 difference, plus any other costs associated with further advertising or open houses to sell the house. I suppose it's possible the contract might say the EMD is all OP gets, but I sort of doubt that. The big question is whether OP really wants to go to the trouble and expense of suing for the difference.

If it were me, I'd probably threaten to sue over the $20, but then agree to split the difference at $10. Just as I don't want to deal with the headache of a lawsuit, neither does the buyer who backed out.