Cold-footed buyer

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by nc expat

Just to clarify -- our house is in NC. The buyers live in CA. I'm pretty sure the mother lives here. Our house was on the market the entire time all of this was going on, so we didn't lose any time there, thank goodness.

Our realtor seemed reasonably familiar with this type of situation, although she balked at it at first. However, after finding out the buyer's geographical situation, she assured me they wouldn't have made the offer if they weren't very interested in the house. The original deal was that they had five days from the date of the contract to have someone view the house. Well, there was snow and holidays and blah, blah, blah...

Looking back on it now, we were really jerked around by this buyer. For instance, a couple days after the offer was made, a family member viewed the house. I was under the impression that was the viewing required in the contract. This family member liked it, so I thought we were good to go. I found out a week later that the mother still had to view it. It was very confusing, and I never felt like I got a straight answer from anyone. I really like our realtor - her people have done an amazing job marketing our house. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because I feel like they were just as exasperated with these people as we were.

But the loan was moving forward, an appraiser came out to the house and I was receiving homeowner's insurance quotes for them in the mail. We were beginning to consider it a done deal.

Unfortunately, the standard NC real estate contract has more than a few "get out of jail free" clauses for the buyer. And ours had one more added in for good measure! Oh well. Next buyer, please! No flakiness, please!

You must have been under contract prior to January 1.
The current contract has only two contingencies:
1. The Due Diligence Period
2. Inability of the Seller to deliver clear title.

Simpler... In its own way...

[nc expat]

We were. Good to know any future contracts will be more in our favor!

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by MikeJaquish

You must have been under contract prior to January 1.
The current contract has only two contingencies:
1. The Due Diligence Period
2. Inability of the Seller to deliver clear title.

Simpler... In its own way...

Originally Posted by nc expat

We were. Good to know any future contracts will be more in our favor!

"Simpler... In its own way... "
Refers to the newly simplified provision that the Buyer can terminate before expiration of the Due Diligence Period "for any reason or no reason at all."
I.e., all the contingencies that were in your contract from 2010 are covered with the Due Diligence Period.
So, I am not sure that your future contracts will be "more in your favor."