Earnest Money

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jmorberg

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we bought into a vacation development here in Washington State, almost 2 years ago, and the original closing date was January 3rd, 2008. We have since signed Addendum/Amendments to extend closing to April 25th, 2008, and July 30th, 2008. We now have received another Addendum/Amendment to close on August 8th to sign. Yesterday i received a vm from the developer that the home will not be completed until August 15th. Our situation at this time is that we cannot get financing for closing on this. I called our original sales rep 3 weeks to to verbally let them know this. I was told that the developer expects us to close on this deal (we did not sign a financing contingency). I was also verbally told that we could try to assign the p & s without advertising it specifically. I have tried to find someone to take over out p & s, and i do have someone interested in doing so. The p & s is not an MLS contract, but one prepared by an attorney firm here in Washington State. There is this clause for Closing. "This sale shall be closed on or before (January 3rd 2008), provided seller reserves the right to accelerate or extend closing for up to an additional 30 days without fee or penalty. "Closing" means the date on which all documents are recorded and the sale proceeds are available for disbursement to seller. Purchaser and seller shall deposit with closing agent all documents and monies required to complete this sale in accordance with this Agreement" Under the General Provisions paragraph it simply says "Time is of the essence". We did provided $42,000 in Earnest Money at the time of contract (10%). All i care is that we get this $ back. The project has had it's share of problems with getting things done on time. At the time in January, there were financing programs that would of allowed us to close at 90% financing if we need to at that time, not there are not for our situation. Do i have a good case to get back our Earnest $ if we do not sign an extension and the property is not finished and July 30th passes? due to the "time is of the esssence" clause? The part about the additional 30 days for the seller to accelerate or extend sounds a bit tricky though.

Thanks
 
You really need an attorney to look at the paperwork and give you an opinion. The exact wording of the documents will control. They are not going to just give you the money back, you are going to need an attorney to file suit anyway and hope they are not BK.
 
You really need an attorney to look at the paperwork and give you an opinion. The exact wording of the documents will control. They are not going to just give you the money back, you are going to need an attorney to file suit anyway and hope they are not BK.
Thanks, I will, just curious, have you ever heard of a seller preventing the buyer from selling the property in a specified period of time. In this case with the same seller, they have a 6 month no solicitation after closing, if it's OK, i'm wondering can a seller prevent the buyer from selling for any length of time?
 
I doubt that they can enforce it but it would depend on state law and here your attorney is the best resource.
 
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