Regarding Earnest Money

[Saijad Dhuka]

We recently had a commercial property under contract in Texas and had an option period of 21 days. On the 21st day, we decided not to pursue the purchase further due to some unexamined concerns and informed our Realtor to notify the Sellers' Realtor regarding terminating the contract or getting an extension. But our Realtor failed to notify the seller that same day and waited till the next day. When he notified the seller's agent the next day (one day past the option period), he replied that they would not extend the contract and also keep the earnest money.

We need some advice on what our options are here to recover the earnest money? Should our realtor be held accountable since he didn’t notify the seller on time and also didn’t let us know that he wouldn’t be able to notify the same day so that we could write to the seller ourselves.