One week ago, my wife and I “thought” we bought a new home. Today, it appears that the builder allowed a party to counter our offer behind our backs, even after we signed the contract and wrote them a check for the earnest money.
When we sat down with the builder’s agent, she made the statement, “Someone has just offered us a “low-ball” offer on this home. We have turned down this offer and will only accept the asking price. If you’d like to pay that price, my supervisor has shared that this home is yours.”
So, we signed on the dotted line and handed over the $$.
For six days, we assumed we had bought a home, that is, until a representative from the builder called our realtor with this message, “We’ve accepted a higher bid on the house. Therefore, we did not sell the house to your client.”
A higher bid? You didn’t sell us the house? When did this happen and why are we finding out about it 6 days later?
So, we’re not sure what has really happened, except what appears to be something really shady. They allowed the party who made the “low-ball” offer to counter ours, but, they never allowed us to counter their offer. They told us the house was ours.
Are they legally responsible? The contract we have only has the agent’s signature, but not the supervisor, which is necesary to make the contract official.
So, what wisdom do some of you have concerning this? I know what the right thing is to do, which is for the builder to offer us a home of equal or greater value. Anything less is the wrong thing to do. We have a meeting Monday with the district supervisor, but I feel as if he will try to weasle out of this.
One agent even fed us the story, “We already had a contract on the house from the day before.” However, it was clearly shared to us that there was no contract on the house, only a low bid, and the “supervisor” stated that it was ours…at the asking price.
What say you?
Frustrated in Texas