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Old 07-09-2016, 07:48 PM
 
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
11,936 posts, read 13,015,426 times
Reputation: 27076

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Quote:
Originally Posted by oldtrader View Post
Going this route, is the stupid way to go. It will take one to two years to get such a suite settled, and not go the way the seller wants.
A colleague just went through this and the entire deal was settled within 45 days.

Again, I said the OP could do this not that they should do this.

It does not always take years.
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Old 07-09-2016, 07:51 PM
 
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
11,936 posts, read 13,015,426 times
Reputation: 27076
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmartMoney View Post
Attorneys most certainly drew up the contracts for the various Board of Realtors I speak of, one, NVAR has 20K members........but the attorneys do not fill in the blanks. Are you saying in Florida an attorney writes up their own contract and each different within the same BoR?
A team of attorneys from the FAR write the Farbar contract. Agents fill in the blanks. It is used statewide.

It was just recently changed.
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Old 07-10-2016, 01:22 AM
 
Location: Back and Beyond
2,993 posts, read 4,269,861 times
Reputation: 7213
I would just let the 2k go for piece of mind and chalk up the lost rental income to a life lesson and sell the house to someone else ASAP. It's not worth being so stressed about and getting lawyers involved. Just my $.02.
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Old 07-10-2016, 01:46 AM
 
9,891 posts, read 11,689,087 times
Reputation: 22085
Quote:
You missed the most important part of this deal - the "buyer" signed a purchase contract & then began immediately trying to "flip" the property to a greater fool. There was no intent to perform, unless he could find someone else willing to buy it from him at a greater price. He lied about his ability to purchase the property & mislead the seller about his intentions. If he had told the truth about what he planned to do, the seller would have never evicted their tenant & pulled the property off the market. There's real live fraud here & if you could get the feebs interested, a possibility of jail time for the "buyer". Proving real economic damage here wouldn't be that hard, collecting a judgement would be hard.
Getting a property under contract and then immediately trying to sell your position for a profit, is very, very common, and is not fraud as you hint. It is often done in investment property, much more than with single family homes for personal residences. It is very common in land, and other such properties.

Properties go under purchase contract constantly, and many of them do not close for one reason or another. The buyer wants the seller to do some repairs as an example, the seller will not do. The financing falls through, for one reason or another. The property fails to appraise at or above the purchase price. In case of a divorce, one of the couple will not sign the contract. The sale is contingent on selling the buyers present home. The buyer loses his job just before closing, which will cancel approval of the financing. It is very common, and in all of these instances and many others, the deposit is returned to the buyer as per the contract.

On the other hand, there are situations that develop, and the deposit belongs to the seller. It all depends on the exact wording of the contract, and the circumstances that stop the sale. Everybody is just listening to one side, and does not have the information needed to determine if the seller or the buyer is the one that will receive the deposit.

The deposit is to ensure that the buyer will complete the purchase. Depending on the wording of the contract itself, the seller may actually have no claim on the deposit if the buyer was unable to get the financing to buy the property. As he made multiple applications as the seller has stated, he may actually have grounds to cancel the sale due to financing problems.

He is apparently unemployed with no track record that will get him a loan. I personally would have not have taken a contract from this buyer, as he was not employed with a track record of being able to finance real estate investment property. The odds on being able to close such a sale, are simply against it closing. A loan may have been offered to him, if he could get a co-signer, etc. If he had no one that would co-sign the fact someone said they would give him a loan and no co-signer it would not be a mortgage he could accept and would have had to turn it down and could ask for his deposit to be returned and it probably should be depending on the wording of the contract. There is a lot of unknowns here.

Now we have a buyer and a seller fighting over the deposit.

The problem really is, the deposit was so small it is not enough to go to court with an attorney, and try to hold the deposit. The deposit is all that is really at risk here. Unfortunately the legal fees to try to get the deposit, will cost as much or more than the amount of the deposit. The buyer has no income and owns nothing to get any settlement from if he loses. If he wins the judge may order the seller to pay the buyers attorney and court costs.

Over the years, I had many contracts presented by buyers that I could look at who they were, their assets, and their potential to get a loan from small properties like the sellers, up to 7 figure deals I knew would have a very small chance to close. I would tell my owners the truth, and it was a risky contract, and we would turn it down. We never failed to get a good buyer within a short time, so turning down risky contracts was a good practice.
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Old 07-10-2016, 10:13 AM
 
Location: MID ATLANTIC
8,651 posts, read 22,809,529 times
Reputation: 10469
I recently had a buyer deliberately change his circumstances that altered his loan commitment. In one hand, the listing agent had a pre-approval letter from me stating he was qualified and the funds were in place. In the other hand the listing agent had the buyer's letter of decline, stating insufficient funds. On a date, in between those two documents, she had an email from me stating a loan commitment had been issued and the appraisal was satisfactory. Even then, with the most damning evidence, the seller opted for 50% of the earnest money, just to be able to move on with their lives. This was open and shut for non-perfomance and everyone just wanted this file gone.
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Old 07-10-2016, 10:59 AM
 
4,399 posts, read 10,635,146 times
Reputation: 2383
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueherons View Post
At this point since you've found out that he did get financing and turned it down, you can sue for Specific Performance and force him to buy the home.
This sounds like a great idea. Spend 20,30,40k to try and force some guy in his mom's basement to buy a house for 200k.
Why don't you sue me for specific performance and force me to become president of the united states?
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Old 07-10-2016, 11:11 AM
eok
 
6,684 posts, read 4,218,609 times
Reputation: 8520
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe461 View Post
The RE agents write a legal contract? You are selling a home without an attorney?

Sorry to say, but that's your problem right there.
Not necessarily. A huge number of lawyers are dishonest and incompetent. Just having a lawyer doesn't automatically solve your problems. You have to practically be an expert at shopping for a good lawyer, before you can even begin to use them to solve such problems. Most people don't have that expertise.
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Old 07-10-2016, 11:13 AM
eok
 
6,684 posts, read 4,218,609 times
Reputation: 8520
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdm2008 View Post
This sounds like a great idea. Spend 20,30,40k to try and force some guy in his mom's basement to buy a house for 200k.
Why don't you sue me for specific performance and force me to become president of the united states?
That could be construed at torture and terrorism. No sane person wants to be president of the USA.
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Old 07-10-2016, 01:39 PM
 
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
11,936 posts, read 13,015,426 times
Reputation: 27076
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdm2008 View Post
This sounds like a great idea. Spend 20,30,40k to try and force some guy in his mom's basement to buy a house for 200k.
Why don't you sue me for specific performance and force me to become president of the united states?
This is a common thing.

You are already under a legal contract and the buyer must pay the legal fees for the seller.

Suing for Specific Performance never goes to trial.

I think people forget that a signed real estate contract is a binding, legally enforeable contract and not some flimsy piece of paper riddled with loopholes.
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Old 07-10-2016, 02:23 PM
 
8 posts, read 6,311 times
Reputation: 12
You know... I'm no Attorney General or Prosecutor.. but I believe there is a criminal charge in there somewhere.

Presenting a Fraudulent Instrument to a Financial Institution. Conspiracy to commit fraud (multiple parties). Potentially Mortgage Fraud. It may also appear that he has stolen the identity of someone else to obtain those fraudulent documents. Some states also have certain statues on Real Estate Fraud that may be worth looking into.

I couldn't guarantee you that you'd receive your earnest money deposit.. but, if you tell the story to the right parties you could potentially get a prosecution depending on his actions.
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