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And the judge will put it over 2 or 3 times especially if they know the seller is elderly and who has time for all those trips to small claims court? And I would be willing to bet the case is dismissed out of hand. There is no law that says someone has to hire an engineer in the first place. Although it's common practice, it's not universal. I know THREE people who've sold houses in the last 18 months and the buyer did not request an inspection. And even if they win, they have to try and collect the judgement, and if the defendant doesn't pay, then the judgement has to be entered, which costs more money and so on. Totally not worth it IMHO.
The better course of action is against the attorney who is handling this transaction, quite frankly.
You never know what a judge will do.
I just don't think the seller was acting in good faith if she put her house up for sale for a certain price, got offered the price and then refused to sign the contract. She cost someone money (inspection of the house) for absolutely nothing. It isn't fair to the buyer. The seller should not have the house up for sale if this is how she is going to be acting. She may cost several people hundreds of dollars for nothing if several people are interested in buying the house enough to have inspections done.
I just don't think the seller was acting in good faith if she put her house up for sale for a certain price, got offered the price and then refused to sign the contract. She cost someone money (inspection of the house) for absolutely nothing. It isn't fair to the buyer. The seller should not have the house up for sale if this is how she is going to be acting. She may cost several people hundreds of dollars for nothing if several people are interested in buying the house enough to have inspections done.
She may not have been acting in bad faith. Perhaps her circumstances changed.
I just don't think the seller was acting in good faith if she put her house up for sale for a certain price, got offered the price and then refused to sign the contract. She cost someone money (inspection of the house) for absolutely nothing. It isn't fair to the buyer. The seller should not have the house up for sale if this is how she is going to be acting. She may cost several people hundreds of dollars for nothing if several people are interested in buying the house enough to have inspections done.
You can't possibly know why they don't want to sign the contract and there a hundred reasons why besides just being a jerk.
Of course we don't have ALL the details... We only know that the price offered was full price.
Another possible reason for not signing could be that the seller saw terms in the contract she wasn't comfortable with - after all, a purchase/sale is not only about price, it's also about terms and conditions.
Of course that should be conveyed to the buyers or the buyers' attorney...
There are creeps all over the place on this earth, OP you just discovered another one. I had a similar thing happen. Put in an offer, sellers accepted and signed the offer, I paid the inspection, and still within the inspection period, they wouldn't let me into the house for further inspection (to get HVAC contractors in) and said the house is now as-is and no further negogiations will be done for any inspection findings. It sounded like they midway changed their mind and just hope I'd go away.
What goes around does come around. They pulled it off market and relisted 3 months later. When it finally sold, it was for $5K less than the price I offered them in the first place.
By law, real estate contracts must be in writing. In other matters, oral contracts may be sufficient, but not in real estate. So, if the seller does not sign the contract there is no obligation at all on her part.
If the seller had signed, and then refused to sell, you could sue for specific performance. That would be your asking a judge to compel the owner to honor the contract and sell the home to you. In reality, though, unless there was some unusual circumstance, the judge would probably not rule for you. He would just order the deposit returned and maybe give you some damages for money you had laid out.
On a side note, why are you trying to force some elderly lady to sell her home to you when she has obviously changed her mind? My advice is to move on.
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