I find it so unfortunate when buyers, who are also sellers, decide they would like to move up. They decide to sell their home, hire an agent, and put it on the market. The next step in their agenda sounds simple; find their new home. They drive around looking at homes and go to a new home builder on their own.
In this instance, the buyers found the new home they liked, entered into a contract with the home builder's agent and gave a $10,000 deposit. All seems great; right? Wrong. They didn't realize that the contract was not contingent on the sale of their home so in essence put theirselves in the predicament of owning two homes if theirs didn't sell or completely lose their deposit. Well, I know you can guess what happened. Yeap. Their home did not sell and they have lost their entire $10,000 deposit.
The home has been relisted with another brokerage and the new listing agent is being made privy to this previous deal and is asking if there is anything that can be done to get the $10,000 back. Having worked previously with a New Home Builder, the listing agent asks me what the options are. I told her to ask her clients to bring in the contract they signed with the builder and that is when I discovered the non-contigent clause signed by her clients. Very expensive lesson to learn about understanding what you are signing. On the flip side, the builder's agent is saying that they called the clients several times to sign the cancellation, which at this point, they were afraid to sign anything. I have no doubt why. The previous listing agent told them just to ignore it because they have lost their money anyway. At least the builder is offering 1/2 of their deposit back. Does this sound fair? The builders did sell the new home. The clients want to sue naturally. Good luck there. Expensive, expensive lessons to learn that could have been avoided. Will this have a happy ending? I hope so.
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