Earnest money deposit: actual money or copy of the check?

[forzalugano]

Perhaps in some states on and investment property they could write off a loss like that.

Originally Posted by 2bindenver

The thread hijacker's answer is no. You cannot claim the lose of earnest money and home inspection on your tax return. It's a cost of doing business.

[dblackga]

In our state, there are options -- our contract provides for several options to provide earnest money, one is that we can state that the earnest money check is due "X" number of days after the binding agreement (usually 1-3 days). It's almost always acceptable to both sides.

On the other hand, the OP doesn't really sound like they were prepared to buy a house. How did they expect to make a downpayment? They didn't come with a checkbook, or any way to provide the downpayment. As an agent, that would be waving a red flag that the buyer may not be serious about buying a house.

In our state, the buyer's brokerage usually holds the earnest money until closing. We submit checks to our brokerage as soon as they are received -- I do NOT like holding checks for one minute longer than I have to. If the check has been submitted, we make a copy of the check to submit with the offer, and give the check to the brokerage, with notification that there is no binding contract at this time. The check is held in a secure location, and when the contract goes binding, we submit the contract to the office, and the check is deposited in the office's special account.

We once had a buyer who indicated that they would bring the earnest money deposit by the office -- they did, $50,000 cash in an Adidas gym bag! WTH! We explained that we could not accept that much cash, and they would have to get a cashiers check or money order. They didn't want to, because it would result in all sorts of awkward questions for cash over $10,000, which they didn't want to answer, I suppose. Very strange. The deal didn't go through (surprise, surprise).