lengthy closing

[Mark Elliott]

hello to all of my friends  here.  i have an interesting issue i would like some feedback on. i have a flip house that i recently sold ( well, kind of recently). i signed the purchase agreement with the buyer on november 10, 2014. he was kind of pushy on getting the closing done. he said he wanted to close on it before the end of the year ( 2014). i was fine with that. it included doing some repairs which is not unusual. i completed the repairs before the end of the year, which included some roofing work, in the middle of december. 

we scheduled a closing date of january 5, 2015. his bank then announced to me that they would not be ready to close then. we re-scheduled to january 15th. still, they were not ready to close. long story short, since then, tey have never been ready to close. i have had to initiate the 7 day " time is of essence" rule and  demand that they close in 7 days. that was late march. we scheduled the closing for april  6th. on april 6th, they announced that they were not ready to close, but were close. we decided to give them a 10 day extension. april 16th came around and they came up with a list of repairs that they wanted me to do before they would close. they claimed these repairs were on the original contract, which they were NOT as i have the contract right in front of me. well, i did the additional repairs, and rescheduled the closing date to april 23rd. april 23rd has came and went and according to them, they are close to closing. the deal is in the hands of the underwriters, but they still have not set a closing date. 

here we are, nearly 6 months after signing the purchase agreement and they still have not closed on their VA loan. i am about ready to put this place back on the market and see what kind of action i get from it. does anyone have any advice on what i can do to make them close on this thing?????

[Terence J.]

I don't know what the market is like in your area but here it is hot.  At this point they have cost you quite a bit in repairs and time. How much earnest money do they have into it?  

If your market is remotely busy I would break this off now.  You have lived up on your end and they have not so I would be keeping the earnest money. If your market isn't that hot I would demand closing or ask for more earnest money if they want to extend.  At least that way you are getting paid if they ultimately do not close.