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I'm looking to buy a home in Huntersville and just made a mistake that cost me $1,000. Figured I would share in case anyone is in the same boat.
I've been looking in Birkdale and found a house that I liked. It is light and bright and well maintained. Needs some updates but I was OK with it. After I made my offer I found out that the school on the listing (Hough) will no longer be the school the house is zoned for. It's going from an A+ school to a C school. I was very disappointed to learn this - and that I had to learn it on my own instead of being told by the realtors. I was going to pull my offer but didn't feel like I had enough time to make a good decision and didn't want to lose the house. So, I made the mistake of continuing. After thinking overnight and taking into account the updates I would need to do I reconsidered. (The school change made me concerned the property value would drop a bit and I wouldn't be able to recover the money I was planning to spend for the updates when I wanted to sell.)
I made my decision to cancel within 24 hours of the sellers accepting my offer. They still had the open house that was pre-scheduled after taking my offer. They really lost nothing but are insisting I pay the $1,000 due diligence money. (They also claim they had an offer from a neighbor.) I'm waiting to hear back from an attorney so we will see what happens.
Long story short, if I had known ahead of time about the school re-zoning my decisions wouldn't have been made in haste and that would have saved me a bunch of trouble and $1,000. According to the realtors they are still allowed to put Hough HS on the listing even though that's not true for next year.
You will not win in court. You went under contract for the due diligence. It is not the seller's job to inform you about future school boundary changes - you could have done more research before placing an offer. You have every right to back out, but no right to receive your due diligence money back.
What HS will Birkdale be zoned for next year? North Meck?
Sorry that happened to you, but one should always double check the schools in real estate listings.
Yep, expensive lesson to learn. I just moved down from the Northeast and anywhere I've lived they haven't really changed school boundaries so I didn't have it on my radar. I do now, that's for sure. As the other poster said, it's now Hopewell High.
You will not win in court. You went under contract for the due diligence. It is not the seller's job to inform you about future school boundary changes - you could have done more research before placing an offer. You have every right to back out, but no right to receive your due diligence money back.
I figured I should check with an attorney just in case. It was all so fast I hadn't even made payment yet. My realtor said when it's so quick like this, often the seller doesn't demand payment. Not in this case.
Honestly the moves from Hough to Hopewell was probably one of the more "controversial" moves of the reassignment plan, so I think it is fairly well known for those in the area. I've noticed an uptick in the supply of homes for sale in that area, so I think the change has likely already somewhat been reflected in the price. However with that group of students now going to Hopewell, chances are the scores at Hopewell will improve (which isn't a bad school to begin with).
While I do agree that it's probably unethical to list Hough, it is still technically the current assignment so they didn't do anything illegal. And I believe most Real Estate websites say to confirm the school assignments anyway. Unfortunately I doubt you'll get much sympathy from the seller as that may be a reason they're selling to begin with.
Unless your own agent specifically told you to confirm the schools, I'd maybe suggest a new one as an agent local to the area should have known that.
I am not surprised that they wouldn't refund the due diligence. They probably realize they are taking a hit due to the change in schools and are grasping for anything.
I am really surprised your agent didn't catch this. They should have.
Better to lose $1,000 now than thousands later. Good luck.
sorry to hear
after looking at the map, I can see why its going to be a 'C'
Noobinacan, my husband and I are moving from Texas and considered buying in a neighborhood zoned to Hopewell High School. We are still learning the Huntersville area and have heard that the rezoning may be a good thing for Hopewell High. We want to keep our options open and are also looking at neighborhoods east of 77. What do you mean by, "after looking at the map, I can see why its going to be a C"?
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