I had a similar, but slightly different situation.
I have several single family rental houses. Last month I received in the mail from a real estate/property investment company a letter with a picture and address of one of my houses and it said something along the lines of “Under performing property? We will buy it for $77,000” along with contact information.
I didn’t give the letter a second thought as the price they offered was about $10,000 under the assessed value and probably $15-20,000 (if not more) under what I feel is market value.
What if, at that time, my tenant had moved out and I discovered the tenant had absolutely trashed the place and caused $30,000 worth of damage. Would this have been a binding offer?
Presumably when you bought your home, you made an offer (probably through your realtor), and then the seller accepted your offer (probably through their realtor). And then you both signed a written sales agreement, at which point the house was “under contract”. The initial offer/acceptance isn’t the legally binding thing - the written sales agreement is. It documents the terms of your offer (including e.g. an upfront payment of “earnest money”), contains mechanisms for voiding the contract under certain conditions (inability to obtain a loan, unacceptable home inspection results, etc.), penalties for backing out of the contract under other circumstances, and so on.
An offer you get in the mail is almost certainly not any more legally binding than that initial verbal offer you made on your house.
I’m not a contract lawyer (or any kind of lawyer) but this is contrary to what has been explained to me by actual lawyers. Maybe it varies by jurisdiction. My understanding is that the written agreement is not the contract; it memorialises the contract, capturing in writing the shared intent of the parties.
This story reminds me of a time when I misinterpreted a question as an offer. We were house hunting and made an offer on a house, which was not accepted. Some months later, the seller’s estate agent called me and asked if we were still willing to buy the house for that price. Something about the way he asked the question (or my state of mind) led me to believe that the house was ours for that price if we wanted it. This was in the context of a rapidly rising property market and scarce supply, so it seemed like a very attractive offer.
I was disappointed when I later realised that he didn’t have the seller’s agreement to sell for that price and was just trying to move a house that had been on his books for some time. I don’t think he intended to mislead me; it was just a misunderstanding on my part.
According to this site, you’re right, in general. But they point out specific cases where statutes often require written agreements to combat fraud:
Sometimes, a verbal contract is not permitted because a written one is legally required .
Going back as far as the 17th century, common law developed a legal principle called the statute of frauds. If you create a contract covered by this statute, you and the other party must put it in writing and sign it for it to be enforceable.
Most states have adopted a modern-day statute of frauds and the goal remains to prevent fraud and other injury.
Since the statute of frauds differs from state to state, the requirements for written contracts vary. After checking your state’s requirements, you may find that the following contracts must be put in writing:
Contracts that cannot be performed within one year from the date of the agreement (e.g.,copyright)
Contracts in which one party agrees to pay someone else’s debt
A lot of realtor websites confirm that a sales contract has to be in writing to be enforceable:
A contract for the sale of real estate must be in the form of assigned and written document in order to be enforceable. If acceptance comes through verbal communications between the seller, the listing agent, or the buyer’s agent but never actually in a signed and written offer, the contract is unenforceable.
It is crucial to keep in mind that verbal agreements to sell real estate aren’t legally binding. To be legally enforceable, a contract to buy real estate must be in writing, agreed to, and signed by both Buyer and Seller.
With one of the main goals of putting a house on the market for sale being getting an offer, it is helpful for home sellers to understand how the offer process works. In order to be legally binding all contracts to purchase real estate must be in writing and signed by the seller and the buyer.
After all that though, what the OP describes is a request for information from homeowners:
“Would you sell for 10% more than this, if so contact me”
I am not an attorney either, but I had a law class in college. The attorney teaching the class stressed all the necessary conditions for a contract to be valid, as well as the requirement that certain contracts need to be written. I don’t remember the rest but I do remember that real estate deals need to be written.
Of course, if an actual attorney shows up I’m interested to see if I have remembered that correctly.
I haven’t had a law class in college but I did watch The Peoples Court with Judge Joseph Wapner many times. From him I learned that the necessary components to a valid contract are offer, acceptance and consideration. It may be more complex than that in regular courts.
We got one of these a couple of years ago and sure then we would have sold for half-a-million. To no one’s shock they tried to low-ball us and would ask what will you do with the money. I told them none of your business. I then asked if they were going to offer that $500,000 that they promised and they explained that they were taking the chance by buying it as-is, hence the 10% below FMV offer.
Those three elements, plus a meeting of the minds (agreement, or consensus ad idem if you want to sound like a lawyer); and legality of object. Regarding the last one, this means that contracts to buy or sell illegal drugs, or contracts that the Godfather would make with a hitman to kill a guy, are void.
At least in the US and most other common law jurisdictions, sales involving real property must be in writing (the statute of frauds referred to above). Contract law treats real estate very differently from most other sales. The offer in writing would not be sufficient, even assuming the OP’s example qualified.