Girl from Mars I don’t think you appreciate what we are talking about when it comes to the UK. You merely had a verbal deal but (I would suspect) had invested essentially nothing in it before the vendor pulled out. It was a period of a day or two, and even that is highly unusual. In the UK one reaches full agreement, hires lawyers, expends all sorts of money on searches and so on, in a process taking two or more months, all with no binding contract.
Oh, I do understand (we watch heaps of Phil, Kirsty and Sarah here!), and it’s certainly not the same thing. But there is a perception in Australia that once an offer is accepted it’s a done deal, and it’s not.
Sorry to hear about your situation - but I agree with the others that you will look back and be glad this happened when you do find your ideal home. Good luck!
Even though we use the term “gazumped” in Australia, I suspect it is different to what is meant in the UK.
**Girl from Mars **the thing about “done deals” is that in Australia the practice matches the law. By which I mean that precisely because the law does not recognise dealings with land except in writing and signed, dealings in land here are done in writing and signed. Agents are as a rule quite strict in getting everyone signed up on the spot or at least within a day or so, and by and large no one considers the deal done until then.
In the UK, the practice is abysmal because it is to treat the deal as sorta, kinda “done” and place great reliance upon it while there is only verbal agreement, which doesn’t match the law at all.
It’s the same in Canada - it usually is a done deal, and you may have legal recourse, but chances are you aren’t going to bother taking someone to court over it, and you might not win. It still doesn’t sound as bad as the UK, though.
This is so not the case. Once the conditions of the offer have been removed, it’s absolutely binding, and you can keep the deposit and sue for damages or specific performance if the buyers refuse to close the deal.
If any conditions haven’t been satisfied (the buyers don’t obtain financing, there’s an unsatisfactory home inspection, etc.), the buyers are at liberty to back out. If the conditions are satisfied or waived, and the buyers refuse to complete, you (the generic you, not you specifically) would probably would win a lawsuit.
I think you’re arguing what the law say, kathmandu, and I’m saying what actually happens in the real world. We bought and sold a house in Calgary last summer; I know exactly how that went, and I haven’t misrepresented anything here. The buyers met all conditions, then still tried to continue negotiating price with us, and we meanwhile were not showing the place or entertaining other offers because we were bound by the offer signed by both parties and the deposit held in trust at our lawyer’s office.
I’m not saying you’re misrepresenting anything - I’m just saying that you weren’t without recourse. If you decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle to hold your buyers to their deal, that’s a judgment call on your part. It may well have been the right one. But to say that your deal wasn’t binding and couldn’t be enforced isn’t accurate. I live in the real world too, and in Calgary, no less. I had a general law practice, which included real estate law, before I went on maternity leave, and signed, unconditional Real Estate Purchase contracts aren’t “minimally” binding - they’re binding.
Anyways, I hope you eventually sold your house and it went smoothly.
That’s interesting, kathmandu, because we heard from two different, reliable sources that yes, technically it’s binding, but in the real world it’s rarely enforced. If the deal had fallen through from our buyers reneging on their offer to purchase after the conditions were met, we would have simply put the house back on the market and sought new buyers; if I remember correctly, the buyers would have received their deposit back and we could have sued them for it, but the courts wouldn’t have entertained the suit very far if the house was sold and we didn’t encounter any hardship from the deal falling through.
I’m certainly not saying you don’t know your business; this sounds like two different interpretations of the same situation. I do know that what we were hearing sounded very much like the buyers had all the power, and we had almost none. We did eventually sell our house to these people, and I wish to God we’d just left it on the market and sold to someone else - these buyers were trouble from start to finish (literally - they were asking for ridiculous considerations closing day).
Be glad and learn from the experience. The first thing you should learn is don’t fall in love with a house (or at least wait to fall in love with it until after it is truly yours). Buying a house should be approached solely as a business decision. Emotions cloud your judgment, and almost always will cause you to get a much worse deal than you otherwise would.
The ‘if only they had completed before Christmas…’ thing reads more like deep frustration than blame to me - I think the implication is that had the deal gone through, you might have moved in and had the heating on, and the pipe would not have frozen and burst.
Also the pipe might not have frozen if someone were heating it.
I totally sympathize with you on them raising the price. I was looking for a rent to own last year and all of them wanted me to pay (estimated) 2011 prices. I told them I wasn’t going to pay 2011 prices on a house in 2009.
Send them a bill for rent for the place you are staying. ( real or fake, I don’t care.) and make it for the exact amount they are bumping up the new price for.
Fight fire with fire.
Sorry for your PITA.
I am now going to use gazumped in regular speech so people can look at me like This.
If I understand the situation correctly, the closing (aka “exchange”) never took place; the seller is gutting and restoring the interior of the house, and planning to remarket the house in June.
In other words, the deal between the OP and the seller is off. Presumably they have or will soon return any deposit the OP may have put down.
The seller has (generously, IMHO) offered to give the OP the right of first refusal when they remarket the house at a higher price in June. Note that the seller is not necessarily going to make any money on this. They are going to have to make up for any restoration work not covered by the insurance, pay any insurance deductible, possibly pay higher insurance rates after this claim, and deal with all of the contractors to complete the restoration work, along with carrying their mortgage (plus the continued homeowner’s insurance and property taxes) for another six months.
If I were the seller having to deal with all of this, and a potential buyer came back to me with a rent bill, of all things, I would kindly tell them to fuck off.
I can’t help but feeling, after reading the thread, that if it’s the (Previous?) owners problem to fix the water damage they have every right to remarket the house.
I guess OP would have the option to take the house as it is now, at its current price?
I think that having a pipe burst is a significant enough event on EITHER side to invalidate the deal. ANd just imagine, how high would you be jumping if you were told the deal had to go through as already stated?
I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like anyone has challenged the idea that you shouldn’t leave water in the pipes of a house that isn’t being lived in. If this is true, then the pipe’s bursting was their own fault, and they should 100% eat the cost.
I guess what I am trying to say, but putting it poorly, is that I think one of two situations is present
- Either the deal was finished, sale completed, transfer done, in which case it is the OPs problem to fix the water damage, but they get the house at the current price
OR - The deal was not done, it was not finished, handover was not done, in which case the house owner has to fix the problem, BUT they have every right to remarket the house as and when they see fit.
To me it is very telling that the house still falls under the original owners insurance. This would mean to me they are still the ones responsibile, which means that the deal is not complete.
YMMV however.
Just to add - if I were the OP I would be running away from the house at a million miles an hour - and I would be PLEASED to have been released from the deal. No way would I want to buy a flood damaged house.
In England there is an offer and acceptance, then exchange of contracts, and then completion. Before there is an exchange of contracts there is no finalised deal and either party can walk away without repercussions. Before completion there is no actual handover of property (completion is when the estate agents (realtors) give the new owners the key).
Here there is an acceptance but no contract. No binding legal obligation exists on either side. The original owners still own the property completely. Each party can walk away if they want…it’s just kind of a jerk move.
It’s my understanding that a “rent to own” agreement on a house typically takes appreciation into account. After all, you’re basically getting the advantage of a no-bid contract 2 years in advance. I guess prices could go down in that time, at which point you could choose not to exercise your option to buy, but an owner would be stupid to say “Hey, I’ll sell you this house in 2011 for today’s market price.”