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My mother in law is a realtor in TN and she said the same thing. I understand there are differences in what is accepted and not generally accepted in different states, however I would think the legality of the contract itself would be the same everywhere. either an expired contract is enforceable in a court of law or it's not....at least in my mind.
we signed the night before and she signed it the next day but yes I will be contacting an attorney today.
Excellent.
I am really curious about your agent "mitigating our liability" when you say the agent was sloppy in your OP.
You need clarity, and your own good counsel.
we signed the night before and she signed it the next day but yes I will be contacting an attorney today.
Fair enough... you signed it the night before, but it wasn't delivered back to buyer until Saturday, and they signed Saturday.
All these kinds of things really depend on your local rules, and we don't know where you are and shouldn't pretend to know exactly what was true on your contract which we have not seen.... So good luck getting some *real* answers today.
FWIW, our contracts, and presumably yours too, are not written to allow sellers to back out easily. Buyers yes, sellers no. In a worse-case scenario, a buyer can sue for performance and attempt to force you to move, at least making your life difficult. It may cost you money to get out of this at this point. Both your agent and your buyer may have incurred costs, and your agent (and buyer's agent) may have a case for commission.
There are a few things buyer MUST do timely in our contracts (most notably earnest money), and it sounds like there are at least a few things that have not been perfectly done here, so hopefully there is something there that will help you.
We crossed out the closing date of May 12 and changed to June 3. We also crossed out the earnest money amount and changed it from $500 to $1,000. We did not initial these changes and we did not change the expiration date of April 2, 6pm. My husband and I signed this offer at 9:30pm April 2.
If the buyers signed off on the changes to the contract, you're both bound by the agreement. If they orally agreed to the terms of the changes, it may be enforceable unless there's a clause in the contract that prohibits unwritten modifications. It's common to agree to the new terms over the phone and commit to signing or initialing the changes at a later time. Need lawyer.
My mother in law is a realtor in TN and she said the same thing. I understand there are differences in what is accepted and not generally accepted in different states, however I would think the legality of the contract itself would be the same everywhere. either an expired contract is enforceable in a court of law or it's not....at least in my mind.
You never answered the question about the earnest money. Did you receive the $1000 before the stated deadline?
In my area, there would be no executed offer since the seller signed an expired offer. There would need to be an addendum to extend the offer expiration date. Out here, there is no mutual acceptance, but not sure how they define things in your state.
We don't cross things over out here either since it makes things messy and hard to determine if everything was agreed to making things murky for mutual acceptance.
Here, it can be valid if signed after the expiration, but some brokers prefer making it cleaner with a new addendum.
And same with cross-outs. You can cross out and mark up the contract, or we can make the changes on an addendum or counter-offer form, and different brokers and different areas have different preferences. Pretty sure no matter what is crossed out or where, any markup *should* have been initialed by all parties.
There's bad practices, OK practices, and BEST practices, and we've all seen some of each, in our days.
Fair enough... you signed it the night before, but it wasn't delivered back to buyer until Saturday, and they signed Saturday.
All these kinds of things really depend on your local rules, and we don't know where you are and shouldn't pretend to know exactly what was true on your contract which we have not seen.... So good luck getting some *real* answers today.
FWIW, our contracts, and presumably yours too, are not written to allow sellers to back out easily. Buyers yes, sellers no. In a worse-case scenario, a buyer can sue for performance and attempt to force you to move, at least making your life difficult. It may cost you money to get out of this at this point. Both your agent and your buyer may have incurred costs, and your agent (and buyer's agent) may have a case for commission.
There are a few things buyer MUST do timely in our contracts (most notably earnest money), and it sounds like there are at least a few things that have not been perfectly done here, so hopefully there is something there that will help you.
Absolutely. In some states, if you sign an offer after the expiration, the other party can waive the expiration and still make a valid contract. There are often default timelines if no new timeline is specified- typically 24 hours after delivery. FWIW, I’ve been in two states where cross outs are perfectly acceptable.
I have asked about it. no response from my realtor (shocking)
You may have a complaint with your agent for their shortcomings but that is not the buyer's problem and won't relieve you of your obligations to the buyer. Who was holding the earnest money in escrow? That should have been in the contract. Contact them.
Stop taking their word for everything. Insist on seeing this countersigned contract and proof of earnest money deposit. It would be hard to prove if they discovered their mistake and dishonestly had buyer sign and backdate the counter but they can't do that with a third party escrow.
But all this is just chit chat. The definitive answer is to get an attorney and their advice will be more appropriate than anything we could offer.
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Excellent.
