I know I will get a lot of feed back with this! Ok you have an accepted offer and have opened Escrow for
about a week Seller decides he doesn’t want to sell! What options does everyone have at this point?
Take him to court and force him to perform to the contract!
Or have him pay the commission. The realtor did their job by finding a ready, willing and able buyer so they should be paid. Not their fault the seller backed out. Then of course he’ll have to pay off the buyer as he could do the above and make him sell the property.
That’s worse case. I’ve met a guy who did that and now regrets it. Didn’t cost him that much though, the realtor let him off the hook as he realized that when he was finally ready to sell, he’d use him and hopefully also use him to buy a place and he had to pay off the buyer with a few G’s.
The seller signed a contract and is obligated to perform. He risks being sued should he fail to do so. The buyer and realtor can of course negotiate a deal to let him out of the contract to their satisfaction.
The question is do you really want to wait for the time it will take to go to court to get the house? Theoretically it could drag on for months, if not years. The best you can probably hope for is to get your option and earnest money back and move on. I know it sucks that it happened, but I have seen it happen many times and the buyer has never ended up with the house. The arguing and fighting go on forever and the only people who make money on the deal are the lawyers.