<p>it is very, very , very hard to get that deposit, so you would be wise to not even think of it as a consideration. It could screw up your being able to sell your home to another buyer, if the current buyers decide to litigate. $50K is not an amount that most buyers would be willing to walk away from without a fight.</p>
<p>vball,</p>
<p>There is a mistake, if you insist and the other party does not budge, you can back out of the contract. But in most cases you will come to a amicable compromise. Don’t try to forfit some one’s deposit because this mistake, you will spend more money and time by digging into such frivolous lawsuit that will hinder your home sale, as someone had already pointed out.</p>
<p>Do you have a backup offer?</p>
<p>The buyers have just agreed to pay the title & escrow mistake.</p>
<p>In my town the inspections are all done by the seller before the house goes on the market; while the buyers can order additional inspections and make them contingencies if they want, this isn’t normally done. There are no inspection, financing or any other contingencies in my contract. I decided not to counter and accepted the initial offer as written based on what I calculated my net proceeds to be. I didn’t include the additional fees in my calculations because they were checked in the contract boilerplate as being paid by the buyer.</p>
<p>Things might have gone differently if I’d been sitting in my Realtor’s office going line-by-line through the contract, rather than on the other side of the world. Or maybe not; maybe he would have seen the wrong box checked, noted it, and moved on. I’ll be interested in doing a post mortem of the entire process when I get home.</p>
<p>Not to reveal too much here, but the buyer is an attorney and is one of the highest elected officials in my county. No doubt he knows way more than I do about contract law and made the decision to follow the letter of the contract accordingly.</p>
<p>Edited to add - no backup offer and probably won’t get one.</p>
<p>Vballmom…glad it worked out for you.</p>
<p>Well, we closed yesterday. I’m exhausted by the whole process. I’m glad it’s over. On the other hand, though, the house was my mother’s, and there’s a sad finality to not having it anymore. I spent the last year with the first 6 months devoted to taking care of her through her illness; and the second 6 months taking care of the house - refinishing cabinets, painting rooms,gardening, staging, then hearing about the visits and comments of everyone who saw the house. Now there’s a big relief and a big void. Did anyone else feel that way?</p>
<p>good for you, Hayden. The void will wear off in the month and years ahead, its a closure and life goes on.</p>
<p>Hayden, I’m sorry for the loss of your mother and sorry for the loss of the house. It’s two big voids that you need to deal with. Don’t make light of the second one.</p>
<p>Hayden…sorry about your mother…congrats on selling your house.</p>
<p>Hayden congrats on selling your mother’s house.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for your kind thoughts. I shared with my H how I was feeling. His response was, “What do you mean you miss taking care of that house? Now you can spend time taking care of me”. A nice cold dose of reality, and a reminder of what is truly important. :)</p>
<p>First open house tomorrow for our dd house. I am keeping my fingers crossed and sending prayers to St. Joseph, that someone will want this house tomorrow. DD and husband have moved out of state and I am tired of being responsible to make sure the lawn has been mowed and now winter is looming. Aaargh! It used to be so simple to sell a house…</p>
<p>Good luck tomorrow, onward.</p>
<p>Good luck, onward.</p>
<p>Also, continued good luck to jym, who I believe still has a house on the market.</p>
<p>Good luck, onward. Preparing a house for selling is a huge amount of work.</p>
<p>A house came on the market 2 days ago in the area where we want to buy. We saw it during the broker tour yesterday. We’ll go back again today for the open house. It has a lot of features we like, and room to expand on the side and back. The location is ideal for us. The agent will take offers on Wednesday. We’re going to put an offer in somewhere around 3-5% over asking and see what happens.</p>
<p>Congrats, hayden. How’d you work out the oil tank thing?</p>
<p>Thanks to Tropical Storm Irene, my dad’s house has some recent updates/renovations. When we get past the Jewish holidays I am hoping traffic will pick up, since the other deal fell through.</p>
<p>As some of you know, I live away from home during the week for my job. Consequently I have no time to get the house ready. How much will a real estate agent do for me? What’s reasonable to ask??</p>
<p>Vballmom…good luck…</p>
<p>VeryHappy…what do you want an agent to do? </p>
<p>The seller’s agent if the place I bought…sold the furnishings and took care of the inspections…</p>
<p>I know some agents that work with stagers too.
The seller lives out of the country. I don’t know what deal was made.</p>
<p>Well, I want the agent to tell me what I have to do, or have to get done. She did provide me with various workmen’s contact info, so I’m having DH handle that during the week when I’m gone. But nothing is moving as rapidly as I’d like. </p>
<p>When I sell the house, I will be able to quit my absolutely horrible job. So I am very motivated! DH – not so much.</p>
<p>
A real estate agent is not your de-cluttering service, packing service, cleaning service, or staging service.</p>
<p>I’d be surprised if any of them would do any of that stuff, other than maybe give you recommendations of people to do that stuff. My DW wouldn’t. Although maybe you can find one so desperate for a listing they will help out.</p>