Any advice how to deal with nonrefundable deposit requirement?

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Hi,

In October I sent out a letter to an owner of the MHP asking if he would be interested to sell his park. In November I received a reply that yes he is interested to sell, so after few back and forth, I sent out signed formal purchase offer based on standard template.

The seller told that his lawyer needs 30-45 days to check an agreement I sent him.

On dec 29, the seller’s lawyer sent me an agreement with changes, which he claimed will make it more "fair".

Those are the changes:

• $5000 refundable deposit turned into $10,000 non-refundable deposit;
• Seller made us responsible for the cost of ALTA Survey of the RE;
• Seller wants we provide him all surveys, reports…, at no expense, in the event we decide to not close the purchase;
• We wanted either buyer or seller may record a sale agreement. Seller wants none may record a deal;

My attorney says that $10,000 non refundable payment to the Seller should be a deal killer.

Seller virtually never gets money until closing, to make sure they can perform and deliver clean title.

So when we told that to the seller, before proceeding with other details, seller's lawyer told my attorney that seller will not compromise on the requirement for a $10,000 non refundable deposit.

I like this deal and I would really like to close it, but I am not sure how to proceed.

Does anybody here have experience with something like that?

Why would the seller require non refundable payment, especially if the lawyer is saying it is a deal killer for that type of deals?

Any information or assumptions would be appreciated.

Thank you.