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I am in Texas and the contract we used was the TREC One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale). The sellers and I signed this agreement around Sept 1 or 2 of this year. The property was advertised as being within a certain school district (more desireable than neighboring districts).About 20 days into the contract it was learned that this was not the case, so I mailed a termination letter along with a request to release earnest money and the appropriate TREC form. This was declined by the seller and he sent me an email via his realtor saying this was my "last warning" to sign the release and give him the funds. Bottom line is that the money still sits in escrow at the title company. The seller opened title and sold the property to another buyer through a different title company than the one we were using.
In speaking with the title company they advised that there may be relief for me since the seller has sold the property but they were not sure. The manager told me to send a written demand to him and he would see what he could do.
Does anyone know if there is a specific law/statute that would allow me to claim this money back now that the seller has sold to a different buyer? I would rather not go to small claims court; it is only $1000. Any ideas, advice would be welcomed as this has now drug on for 3 months and we are still at a stalemate.
I assume you do not have an agent, they should be able to work with you to get your money back.
Look at Para 18C on pg 6 which tells you how to make demand for the earnest money. You need to send a "Release of Earnest Money" to the seller and make a written demand with the title company.
Also read Para 18D which tells you you can sue the seller for 3 times your earnest money, attorney fees and court costs if they don't release. You need to go through the legal steps to get your money back and possibly talk to an attorney.
Walking on the house for schools is not a valid reason in the contract but yes you should have an out because he did sell the house.
You just need to make the proper claim and do it in writing. Read paragraph 18. It has everything you need to make a claim for the money.
If you had an agent they should be able to assist. If you didn't have a Buyers Agent working for you I hope you will in the future.
Many people don't think they need an agent until something like this pops up and many times it then is to late.
Rakin, I am surprised the school system error isn't cause for getting the deposit returned. I would think that the house was sold with misinformation.
That's one of those things a buyer should verify if it's important to them. If he had an agent hopefully the agent would have verified and hopefully caught the mistake. Our school district boundaries do not go with our city boundaries. Some cities may be serviced by 3 school districts and a buyer should always verify, most agents would have probably caught the mistake.
Mistakes and errors happen in the MLS and it's still the buyers responsibility to verify factual information. Garbage in, Garbage Out
I think you'd have a case for misrepresentation against the real estate agent, but it's not a contingency in our contracts either.
That is a good distinction. Makes sense, thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakin
That's one of those things a buyer should verify if it's important to them. If he had an agent hopefully the agent would have verified and hopefully caught the mistake. Our school district boundaries do not go with our city boundaries. Some cities may be serviced by 3 school districts and a buyer should always verify, most agents would have probably caught the mistake.
Mistakes and errors happen in the MLS and it's still the buyers responsibility to verify factual information. Garbage in, Garbage Out
I think you'd have a case for misrepresentation against the real estate agent, but it's not a contingency in our contracts either.
That's what keeps lawyers in business. I believe he'd have to prove it was intentionally deceptive.
TX is still pretty "Pro-Seller" and Buyer Beware is still rule of the land unless they did it on purpose. Thereagain, it's a least 50% or more his fault if he did not have a professional helping him who might have caught the error.
This is the thread we need to send people to when they ask on CD "Why do I need an Agent?"
Same in ours, verifying school info should be done by the buyer within the inspection period contingency that would allow cancellation, otherwise not a valid reason to cancel.
That's what keeps lawyers in business. I believe he'd have to prove it was intentionally deceptive.
TX is still pretty "Pro-Seller" and Buyer Beware is still rule of the land unless they did it on purpose. Thereagain, it's a least 50% or more his fault if he did not have a professional helping him who might have caught the error.
This is the thread we need to send people to when they ask on CD "Why do I need an Agent?"
You know out here I'm seeing more and more listings with no school districts listed. Agents aren't wanting to deal with lawsuits over school boundaries. Maybe it's just out here, but you just punch the address into the school district's program and it tells you the schools. No guessing.
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