Reasons earnest money returned after inspection

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All Topics Zillow Questions Home Buying Home Selling Mortgage Rentals Local Topics Home Ownership Pro-to-Pro. Back to Results Views: Nearby Neighborhoods Dalrock Liberty Grove. Can a seller take the trust money after the inspection is done and the house needs many repairs to make it worth what we offered. This our first experience in buying a home.

We asked the realtor for all the updates done on the home and was given a list. The seller said he wasn't aware of anything that needed to be done. He said the roof and hot water tank were 7 years old. After the inspection was done, the roof and hot water tank were 16 years old, the carpet needed stretched, the garage door was broke and needed replaced, electrical outlets did not work and many other too numerous to mention.

We asked the seller to replace the garage door, have an electrical problems checked and proof the roof and hot water tank were 7 years old. He had no documentation and said he would put bondo on the garage door and that was it. Can they do that? Home is River Cove Dr Problem Select one Offensive content Irrelevant content Spam pure self-promotion Other. Your email Please enter a valid email address. Content flagged We will review this content. This service is temporarily unavailable. Please come back later and try again.

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Go to My Zillow in the top right corner to see your saved homes. Your Answer Upload Image. Email me when other answers are added. Share post on Facebook. Best Answer Selected Once you select this as the best answer, it cannot be changed. In most cases, they include a clause that allows a buyer to inspect and than cancel the contract in a specific amount of time. Make the cancelation of your offer in writing and have proof of the delivery date like a bcc email, a registered letter or a hand delivered cancellation notice by a third party.

Tell the seller in writing why you are canceling the contract on the house inspection and request your earnest money back in a set period of time as defined by your contract. If the seller does not respond, then ask the escrow company if you can place a demand in escrow for your deposit.

They may or they may not. If you win, you may be able to place your demand in escrow so that the seller cannot sell until they pay you. Sebastian Stofenmacher, "Stofenmacher" Agent 9 reviews. Did you have an inspection contingency? Did you sign any contingency removal? You should not be having issues getting your deposit back as long as you had an inspection contingency and did not sign any removal.

The seller may be playing hard ball, but in reality you should have no issues. Even if you had no contingencies, but they clearly gave you wrong information I can see where you should still be entitled to your money back. Ed Eakin, "Ed Eakin Jr CIPS" Premier Agent 30 reviews. Your realtor should be able get your earnest money from listing agent Terry Graf, "Terry Wayne Graf" Premier Agent 41 reviews.

Please let your Realtor guide you through the termination process. Documentation needs to be presented to the sellers agent and then formalized through the title company or attorney handing the escrow. You money should be held by a third party. Good luck, I am sure it will work out well for you if all was performed with in the time frame and documented.

At this time the seller still hasn't signed for the release of the money. We signed the form stating that we would buy the house contingent on the inspection and the appraisal. This has been a nightmare and is still continuing on. Our realtor and the broker are sending the seller a letter, "stating if they don't sign the release form we will take them to court.

Why is the seller being so difficult? Also, they relisted the home at our offer and listed the home "As Is" No repairs will be done! They took advantage of the inspection we paid for and now are trying to sell it as is. What gives with these people. Donna Testa, "DonnaTestaHomes1" Premier Agent 11 reviews. If you put an inspection contingency in your offer and followed the dates that were in the contingency then here in Massachusetts they are required to give you back your offer deposit.

Call your agent then the broker who runs the office you used as your buyer and ultimately the local Real Estate Board if you need to fight to get the deposit back. Jim Stevenson, "therealtorguy" Agent 4 reviews. I think you now know the answer to your question. In the future, make your earnest money deposit check out to your realtor and have your realtor hold the deposit. Your realtors broker will hold the deposit in their escrow account and that money will be applied to their commission at closing.

I have noticed that it is usually smaller listing firms that require the deposit to be held by the listing broker and I refuse to do that. As long as you followed all the terms and dates in the purchase agreement, you should be entitled to a full return of your deposit. By earnest money, you mean the money offered with the Purchase and Sales contract? And the inspection did not meet your expectations and you were lied to by the sellers? And they are keeping your money AND relisted the property?

I would file in Small Claims court and offer the fraudulent list as evidence. Who is holding the money? Lisa Courtney, "user" Agent 6 reviews.

I think I found the listing, and they are claiming the roof is brand new. If you know its not, I would screenshot and print the listing in case you do have to go to court.

Holly Nelson, "Holly Nelson" Agent 11 reviews. If there's a Due Diligence Period on your contract and Inspection was performed during this period. If buyers backed out due to inspection issues the earnest money should be refunded in Full!! Dani Decker, "danidecker" Agent 1 review. If your agent put an option period in the contract, then inspections should have been done during that time.

Once these items were found, negotiations for repairs should have also been done within that time frame. If you back out of the contract during the option period, your contract should state that the earnest money will be returned to you. However, if the option period is over, or there was no option period, your agent may have to negotiate with the other agent and the seller in order to get it returned to you.

Read over your contract thoroughly and if necessary seek legal advice. I am hoping that your agent gave you an inspection time frame and inspection contingencies have not been removed.

Inspection Contingencies Returning Earnest Money All Locations : Nationwide Real Estate Advice

What you are asking for repairs is not unreasonable. Maybe seller will come around and do what you asked and you can move in Scott Broussard, "scottbroussard" Agent 13 reviews. If the inspection was done during the Due Diligence period, your earnest money should be fully refundable. Just be sure to check your dates on the contract so you have solid ground if it does end up in court.

Thomas White, "White Realty" Agent 7 reviews. Your first course of action is to speak with your REALTOR. Verify your contractual obligation. In many cases these items are deal breakers but require that your offer to purchase identify your rights. Mutual consent of release of your earnest money is often a requirement and an allowance for arbitration is common. Again, your REALTOR and or you REALTOR's broker are you advocates I have a question.

A buyer had provided me with a cash offer to purchase my home and I accepted the offer. They informed me in writing that they are retracting their offer because of a registered sex offender that is living in the house.

Again, and I am not joking…They claim that they were not aware that there was a school that close to my home even though the school is in clear view from the front of my house.

She attempted to prevent me from relisting my house as the house was removed from the MLS and claims that I will not be able to sell my home unless I sign the release from purchase. Catherine Webb, "zuser" Agent 5 reviews. The buyer can cancel at anytime for any reason during the due diligence timeYou should be happy they found out in only 3 days.

This can stop a sell of your home if money is in escrow and escrow has been opened. Since it's a cash offer which buyers wanted to close in 14 days, we put out extra money and rush ordered everything we are supposed to order HOA paper etc.

We were supposed to have closed the deal already but my realtor said the sellers were not responding to her at all and the escrow company have not heard from them. The last communication they had was when the sellers sent a repair request which we countered by giving them a certain credit which was 5 days ago.

She has not gotten a response back on that document and the Escrow company had no idea if they intend to close. When we asked our realtor if we could keep some of their deposit as reimbursement for the documents we already rush ordered, she said they No and there's nothing we could do. Then what's the point of having a deposit? We were dealing with a realiyor that knowing our credit was bad claimed he could get us a house we could do a rent to own on his house cause he is elderly he couldent do the up keep on the property he said all we had to do was give him dollars to show we were serious and a month no paper signing or anything was done he backed out said he ran our credit and we dident qualify witch is what we discussed in the be gaming he kept our money and won't return it.

Verbal contracts don't hold much weight in courts. Don't move in until you have a written contract.

Usually rent to own deposits are not refunded if you move out. Sandon Smith, "Sandon Realty Group" Premier Agent reviews. In Texas the buyer is usually protected by an 'inspection period. As long as you cancel the contract within that period you can get your EM back. If you go past the option period deadline your EM becomes 'hard' as I like to call it.

But even then there are still ways out. Just make sure and have an agent that knows how to write a good contract.

I have a rent to own basic contract on a modular home. If I have to move , will I be able to get my deposit and monies towards home purchase price back. I put dollars down, and Usually the money will not be refunded. Sandon, Could you share what are the ways out if a buyer goes beyond the option period to get their EM back?

Can I get my earnest money if the appraisal requires repairs and seller declined the repairs? Can a buyer get their earnest money back after completing four inspections and on the fourth inspection they didn't notice that there was not a garage! So this is why they backed out. Scott Godzyk, "Scott Godzyk" Premier Agent 1 review. It will depend what your contract states. If your offer to purchase was contingent on a home inspection, if you did it with the time frame as well ask asked for those things in writing and then notified them in writing with in the time frames, no, if you were after your time frames, maybe, check your contract and if confused seek a lawyers review.

I live in Illinois. We had disclosed there has been a few times in years past where some water got into the basement and made a couple feet of the carpet wet. This year in Illinois I am not sure there is a dry basement in Illinois. Well, upon inspection the buyers said they wanted to back out.

Can we get our earnest money back after inspect - Q&A - Avvo

Should I be able to keep the earnest money? It was disclosed and they signed a contract saying they would purchase "as is with no repairs". Joshua Marriott, "joshmarriott" Premier Agent 44 reviews. Without reading the contract no one can accurately answer this question.

If you have an agent representing you I would speak to their broker since it sounds like they might not be the best resource.

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