Seller Raising Price After We Accepted Counteroffer
Buying a lot in FL, made an offer and accepted their counteroffer. Faxed acceptance to sellers agent who confirmed receipt within contract time span of 2 days.
He could not contact seller until 3 days.
Now seller says will not accept, and wants $1500 more.
New to this but feel I am being screwed.
Think I have a legally binding contract, but worried legal costs will be more than the $1500, and don't want to lose the lot.
Any thoughts?
YOu have a legally binding contract. Since the agent is representing the seller, when you contacted him with couteroffer acceptance, you had in essence notified the seller. Despite the fact the realtor could not contact the selelr directly for 3 days, since he was an agent representing the seller, contacting the agent was essentially contacting the seller as far as you're concerned. You will probably need to get an attorney to write a nice letter to avoid a long drawn out ordeal. Good Luck!
there is no binding agreement until a contract has been fully executed by both sides. an offer/counteroffer is not good enough.[ Edited by lp1 on Date 01/14/2004 ]
Must be a sellers market there. Did the seller execute the contract and only make the small counter offer or did they make the counter without signing the contract, Kind of a minor point but you may have a binding contract if they executed a counter offer and you accepted. The question is now what. You can tie them up with a lis pending action and mess up the sale to others for months or even years or pay the taller price or bargain with them. Perhaps a face to face may be in order. This is how i prefer to buy anyway. I would not want to go to court over $1500. If you really want it you may pay the extra.
Good LUCK and Thank You
Hope this helps some
Ted Jr
I think the keyword here is (fully)executed, notification is not enough.
Thanks for all the replies.
Ted, the seller made the counteroffer, changed and initialled contract and faxed it to us. We initialled and faxed back. The FL contract says that is all that is needed.
I agree it's not worth losing the lot, or going to court for $1500, but like to know where we stand before we talk to them.
There seem to be all sorts of legal options: specific performance to force sale, difference damages to recover potential gain, consequential damages for appraisal and finance costs etc. Is it worth mentioning this to the seller?
Bruce
On any contract issue, there are three thing that must be present: Offer, Acceptance, & Consideration...and all 3 must be looked at to see if there really was ever "a meeting of the minds".
Have your lawyer write him a letter and that'll likely settle seller down to living with what he said he'd take.
Your lawyer might also decide it's a good idea to cloud the title by recording a Notice of Interest in deed records...but ONLY if he decides there really was a completed contract between you & seller.
The important key here is.... what did the contract say in regards to "Delivery" of the accepted offer and counteroffers. If the delivery section states that the Seller must receive delivery then it is the seller who must recieve delivery by the specified dates. If the contract named the realtor as a "recipient for delivery" on behalf of the seller then it would be binding when the realtor recieved it. It's a sticky matter and one reason why I was always told not to "assume" that delivery by fax or to the agent was acceptable even though the contract states that it was. (by the way, the contract would have had to say that delivery by fax was an option and give the specified number). It was up to the realtor to get the accepted contract to the seller by the date stated for acceptance. I wonder if the Realtor held on to this one knowing that a new offer was coming in?
he said that they initialled changes on the contract...he doesnt say that the parties actually signed the contract.
if they didnt sign the contract they can weasel out of it ..
also if this a binder agreement you are referring to is not the equivilant to a contract..because a binder agreement usually has a way out such as subject to attorney approval....if thats the case they will say that their attorney advised them against going through with the deal because a higher and better offer came through..(here in NY during negotiations especially when a real estate agent is involved we use binder agreements that have clauses that the seller/buyer can use to pull out of a deal even though they may have agreed on a price.[ Edited by lp1 on Date 01/14/2004 ]