Buyer in Real Estate Transaction unwilling to perform his duties?

My sister is selling her house and has been in escrow for about 50 days. Her house is worth about 600k and is located in Southern California. According to her agent the buyer was having a hard time getting financing because a tax lien appeared on his credit report when the bank rechecked his credit rating. He finally got approved for the loan and know the buyers agent cant locate his client. The client had told him he had paid off the tax lien and would provide him with the paperwork, because the bank wanted it paid off before they could close the deal.

Does my sister and agent have any recourse because according to her agent, the buyer refused to sign off on %26quot;contingencies%26quot; all along.

Acording to my sisters agent when you sign off, then you can be sued if you dont perform after having your loan approved, but this buyer neve signed off and now they cant find him, meaning hes in hiding, the deposit on the contract only appears to be for $2000, can my sister keep that and sue

Buyer in Real Estate Transaction unwilling to perform his duties?bad credit loan

It%26#039;s difficult to say, here, without knowing how the contract reads. The contract should tell you everything as far as what happens if certain requirements are not met. PS: If the buyer wasn%26#039;t signing off on contingencies, etc., all along, then the agent was not doing their job. The contract probably has a closing date of some form written into it. If they don%26#039;t close on that date, then it%26#039;s a dead deal. But that%26#039;s a long time off the market, and if I was your sister, I%26#039;d be angry. $2,000 is nothing compared to two months off the market at the height of the sales season.

In most contracts, the buyers have to pursue financing in good faith, and there%26#039;s a time clause in there, where if they can%26#039;t get it in a certain amount of time, the deal is dead. It%26#039;s to protect the seller, to keep the house from being off the market forever while some hapless buyer who couldn%26#039;t get a mortgage for a dollhouse flounders around trying to get financing. IF the tax lien is cleared up, the buyer has refused to provide the necessary paperwork, and that is the only thing holding up the approval, then he is non-compliant and your sister gets to keep the money. If he can%26#039;t clear the tax lien, he is unable to get financing and he may be due the money back DEPENDING ON WHAT THE CONTRACT SAYS.

$2,000 on a $600,000+ house? Wow. That%26#039;s not much. I don%26#039;t really care too much about the agent%26#039;s %26quot;hard work%26quot;, An agent is paid when a deal is closed, and if the deal doesn%26#039;t close through no fault of seller, the agent gets nothing. It sounds like the buyer did not have a solid %26quot;pre-approval%26quot; before entering into the deal, and instead had a %26quot;pre-qualification.%26quot; On a pre-approval, the bank has done all the paperwork to qualify a buyer%26#039;s income and credit, and is only waiting to to review the appraisal -- a tax lien would NEVER slip through a true pre-approval. A lot of banks may call it a %26quot;pre-approval%26quot;, but a pre-approval with contingencies such as %26quot;proof of income, credit report, etc.%26quot; is worthless.

Buyer in Real Estate Transaction unwilling to perform his duties?

loan

You know, people can sue for all kinds of reasons. The deal is can you ever collect from this guy since he is already running from a tax lien?

Your sister may have to take some sort of legal action to get the contract totally released. It may not be complicated or expensive.

It sounds like the buyer never really paid the tax lien.|||Not all %26quot;deals%26quot; close and as you have wriiten many people have worked in this transaction.

If the buyers does not perform, he may loose his deposit or he may still have some form of contigenicies that is in the written agreement that will allow him to be released from the contract.

The brokers opinion here could be valauable to your sister.

As to the agents time and effort, this is one of the pitfalls of real estate the agent recieves zero unless the transaction closes..