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I suspect your attorney is giving excellent advice. Take the best sum or deal you can negotiate or quit and get your earnest money back.
You have all sorts of legal and moral right on your side. However none of that will get it closed in two weeks.
You can likely go off and demand the house with the roof fixed. In some number of months, after having front ended 10s of thousands of dollars, there is a high probability that you will win and get the house, maybe with the roof fixed.
There are however any number of alternatives including that you lose on some fine point in the contract. Then you don't get the house, pay their legal costs and don't get reimbursed for your costs.
Or you win and they go belly up and leave you with an unsatisfied judgement and large costs.
So either take the best you can get or walk. This is not the sort of matter where you wish to set the legal gun figthers loose.
If I were representing you and you decided to fold I would run a large and noisey we are going to sue you if you don't give us back the earnest money and pay all our costs encountered. Work mostly all the time except if they are broke...then you are kind of dead no matter what.
I completely agree with olecapt. There's "the law" that is theoretical and looks like the biggest trump card of all, and there's the law that reflects the real world with all of its warts. Do you really want to go to court over this contract? Is it really worth all of that? If it is, go for it but I wouldn't. Life is too short. I'd get the roof fixed, have it inspected by an independent roofer to be sure it is OK, get the other things fixed by the seller as part of the renegotiation, close, and enjoy your new home. My best advice is what I've learned myself over time and it has made my quality of life much, much better. Don't allow yourself to be swallowed up in what I call the 'holier than thou' trap--even if you are justified in your feeling as you are in this case. A little common sense, a little perspective, and a little humility will smooth most of life's speedbumps.
No, the fully exectuted contract says the roof will be REPLACED. There is no "repair" mentioned.
We don't want our earnest money back. We want the house replaced.
Our issues continue that now they are trying to decide how much they will pay for repairs, and we're coming close to closing. I imagine them waiting until the last week or something, when were backed into a corner if we want the house, and then saying, "OH sorry, we don't have the money, we'll give $500 toward repairs, take it or leave it."
Our legal rights, as per convos with an attorney are that we can back out and regain our earnest money, and sue them for the cost of our inspection and appraisal. That's it. They have nothing to lose except the sale.
By the way, they have continued showing the house in case the sale falls through.
How do we know they won't break the contract and offer some unreasonable solution, give back our earnest money, assume we won't sue cuz it wouldn't be worth the extra $800, and all the while they have a better offer waiting in the wings and are doing it on purpose?
I misstated an earlier reply of mine and corrected your quote a little further back. At this point, you want the roof replaced. The sellers, for whateve reason, cannot or will not replace the roof. You have consulted with an attorney who gave you advice. We cannot second guess the attorney's advice. Listening to only one side of this story, I can only see 3 choices for you. A. extend the contract for maybe two weeks to see if you can work this out amicably; B. take your attorney's advice and move forward; he/she obviously doesn't believe there is a solution where he could prevail. C. Get another attorney.
I completely agree with olecapt. There's "the law" that is theoretical and looks like the biggest trump card of all, and there's the law that reflects the real world with all of its warts. Do you really want to go to court over this contract? Is it really worth all of that? If it is, go for it but I wouldn't. Life is too short. I'd get the roof fixed, have it inspected by an independent roofer to be sure it is OK, get the other things fixed by the seller as part of the renegotiation, close, and enjoy your new home. My best advice is what I've learned myself over time and it has made my quality of life much, much better. Don't allow yourself to be swallowed up in what I call the 'holier than thou' trap--even if you are justified in your feeling as you are in this case. A little common sense, a little perspective, and a little humility will smooth most of life's speedbumps.
Yeah, thanks everyone. We've also learned that we can do the replacement ourselves, before closing, and then sue them for the cost reimbursment, that's actually spelled out in the contract. The problem is that we don't want to sue them, we just want the roof fixed (at this point, they haven't even agreed to fix/repair it).
We are trying to be nice. I know I'm venting here online, but we're not really unreasonable. I'm not trying to stick them to the wall or throw the full weight of the law at them, I just want to be able to move into the house without having to pay for repairs they originally agreed to address, and without taking them to court.
I think I was curious about my options, but not really intending to go crazy pursuing any of them.
I don't know what position they are in, perhaps they are dead broke and really can't do what they agreed to do, and agreed to it after bad advice from their broker, insurance adjuster, or what not... I'm want to give them the benefit of the doubt....
But at the same time, I wonder if I'm being stupid and naive and they are playing me.
For all I know, insurance agreed to replacement, but they decided the deductible was too much, and they could push us into taking less than their deductible because they know we gave notice on our apartment and they know we are emotionally attached the house.
This stupid game of cat and mouse. I hate real estate! We built with a builder on our other house, and it was 1,000,000,000 times less stressful than this!!
Yeah, thanks everyone. We've also learned that we can do the replacement ourselves, before closing, and then sue them for the cost reimbursment, that's actually spelled out in the contract. The problem is that we don't want to sue them, we just want the roof fixed (at this point, they haven't even agreed to fix/repair it).
We are trying to be nice. I know I'm venting here online, but we're not really unreasonable. I'm not trying to stick them to the wall or throw the full weight of the law at them, I just want to be able to move into the house without having to pay for repairs they originally agreed to address, and without taking them to court.
I think I was curious about my options, but not really intending to go crazy pursuing any of them.
I don't know what position they are in, perhaps they are dead broke and really can't do what they agreed to do, and agreed to it after bad advice from their broker, insurance adjuster, or what not... I'm want to give them the benefit of the doubt....
But at the same time, I wonder if I'm being stupid and naive and they are playing me.
For all I know, insurance agreed to replacement, but they decided the deductible was too much, and they could push us into taking less than their deductible because they know we gave notice on our apartment and they know we are emotionally attached the house.
This stupid game of cat and mouse. I hate real estate! We built with a builder on our other house, and it was 1,000,000,000 times less stressful than this!!
Why don't you all just have an amicable sit down and work this out? too much drama here imho.
Yeah, thanks everyone. We've also learned that we can do the replacement ourselves, before closing, and then sue them for the cost reimbursment, that's actually spelled out in the contract. The problem is that we don't want to sue them, we just want the roof fixed (at this point, they haven't even agreed to fix/repair it).
We are trying to be nice. I know I'm venting here online, but we're not really unreasonable. I'm not trying to stick them to the wall or throw the full weight of the law at them, I just want to be able to move into the house without having to pay for repairs they originally agreed to address, and without taking them to court.
I think I was curious about my options, but not really intending to go crazy pursuing any of them.
I don't know what position they are in, perhaps they are dead broke and really can't do what they agreed to do, and agreed to it after bad advice from their broker, insurance adjuster, or what not... I'm want to give them the benefit of the doubt....
But at the same time, I wonder if I'm being stupid and naive and they are playing me.
For all I know, insurance agreed to replacement, but they decided the deductible was too much, and they could push us into taking less than their deductible because they know we gave notice on our apartment and they know we are emotionally attached the house.
This stupid game of cat and mouse. I hate real estate! We built with a builder on our other house, and it was 1,000,000,000 times less stressful than this!!
It is a really bad idea to put a roof on a home not titled in your name (a.k.a before closing). Highly inadviseable. Simply negotiate the cost of the new roof be escrowed at closing to be held back from the sellers proceeds.
I cannot believe your Realtor/real estate attorney is not giving you better advise; or, that you are not taking some of the very good advice offered to you.
I haven't really gotten advice, I've been given "options" and none of which are extremely appealing to me. We can't force them to do the roof, we just can't, contract or not. We can tie it up in court, but that's not a solution we like either.
The money in escrow is a good idea, and I'll be talking to my realtor about that.
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