I have a sales and purchase contract signed by me and the seller. He now wants $5,000 more for the property than what our contract is for. Can he do this?
The seller can try. You can threaten to sue for specific performance which means that a judge will have to hear the case probably in district court which costs a lot in attorney fees.
You can also threaten to “tie his property up” where he can not sell it until he has dealt with your lawsuit. Sellers do not like this and he may back down.
If he is a dealer or broker you could threaten his license or sue for deceptive trade practices.
It is probably like “Liar Liar” when the car gets scratched, Jim tells the parking attendant that he will just take it up the butt and smile and do nothing.
Did the seller find gold on the property. Try to get some reason why he wants more. Maybe you will pay the extra if it is really a super deal and you can still make $20,000. You can always just walk away with your earnest money and find another deal. Hope I have given you a few ideas. I know you are fustrated. This same thing happened to my dad when trying to buy a $3,000,000 apt building except it was not under contract. He kept agreeing to pay their price and they kept raising the price. At $6.5 million he told them where to go. They sold it for over $7 million to someone else.
Thank you,
Ted P. Stokely Jr
11505 Sw Oaks
Austin, Texas 78737
512-301-9171 home
512-587-6177 mobile
Can they? They can try.
Can you sue and win? Probably, if you have the time, money and desire.
If this is a big deal with lots of profit, try to work it out. Sure they “can’t do this to you” but in reality, they can try and life is just too short.
If they want to be hardasses about it, if I were you, I would do one of 2 things, depending on the mood I was in. I would either tell them to go for it and file a memorandum so they would get a big surprise when they tried to sell to someone else down the road or let them out of it completely.
Too many other deals out there.
Just like the others have stated, the seller can try to get more. Often buyers do the same thing, they have a property under contract and then they try to get it for less then what they contracted it for. Some people claim that the negotiations begin once the contract is signed.
If the seller decides that they are not going to sell to you, your option is to sue them. The negativism in suing someone isn’t worth it to me. I’d rather move on from the deal and put my energies toward doing something positive.
Legally the seller is bound to sell to you for the contractual price, however it may take a judge, your attorney, your money and some time to enforce it.
I’ve just put together a two-property deal, which I’ve got a contract to buy from a flipper.
However, my hard money lender is having me pay for an appraisal ($450 X 2 buildings), and inspection (x2), and a survey.
If the actual seller decides to do something stupid (like deed the property to his brother at the last minute)… am I stuck eating the $900+ appraisal, inspection, etc… fees?
Adam,
This situation is different than a seller just trying to back out of the deal. If there are costs involved on your side this is where you need to decide if recouping the costs is worth the time and money of having to sue.
If it is just a matter of suing to get your costs back, small claims court may work and is fairly speedy.
Suing over specific performance, however, won’t be handled by a magistrate judge (not here in GA anyway) and would take considerable time and money.
There comes a point where time and effort spent is more valuable than a small amount of cash. That point comes at different times for different people.
Yes, if your buyer backs out of the deal, you would have to eat the appraisal fees and any other costs that you incurred. More often then not I’d eat these costs because my buyer couldn’t pass clear title to me, not because they backed out.