24 hours to close seller wants to walk...

[Dennis Wasilewski]

After over a month of waiting for appraisals, environmental assessments, inspections by city, etc we are two days from closing on a 6-unit building about an hour and a half outside Philadelphia.

While reviewing the HUD I noticed the seller assist is missing so I follow up on our group thread - my agent, seller, seller agent, title closing agent and my lender. Next thing you know the seller responds that they don't recall any discussion of seller assist and will be talking to their agent. Fast forward to the next morning when the seller responds that the text on the PSA was not centered (dotloop left-justifies all the text) and the font was too small so it was never identified by seller or agent. And therefore the seller is unable to come to settlement. This is a PSA that's been around since late March!

What?! How could he do that you might be asking. Well, when I signed the PSA it was in my personal name but the financing (6-unit) is in a new LLC. We all agreed weeks prior to just terminate the contract at closing (to avoid any potential PA transfer tax implications for substituting my LLC) and sign a new one in the name of my LLC. Guess who was refusing to do that & putting me in a tough spot. Bail on the 6% assist with my tail between my legs? No no no.

The next few hours were countless phone calls to title, lender, insurance agent & real estate agent to find out how/if I could flip financing, insurance and title insurance to my personal name to be able to close under the existing PSA. I always thought the talk of having a ‘team’ was a bit over-the-top but during those few hours a lot of people dropped everything to work out how to accomplish this for me.

In the end I had enough green lights to have my agent make two offers back...

- buyer closes under his personal name with 6% assist or we’ll take legal action 

- buyer & seller amend contract in next 30 minutes to 3% assist & substitute LLC

— Oh and it’s not our job nor responsibility to read the agreement to you. Especially when you had amended literally the line below on closing date & initialed just off from the assist %.

The seller chose option 2 and we closed today! In the end we all left as friends. The seller & I exchanged numbers to stay in touch after having a great chat awaiting the mountain of paperwork. Craziest day in a long long while.