Home selling - earnest money

[Elsie Schwarz]

Can we keep the earnest money if the buyer backs out of the contract because they realized they didn’t factor the flood insurance into heir monthly payments? It was stated in the listing that flood insurance is required.

We were under contract after 3 days of being on the market. We 7 showings in 2 days and very busy open house the 3rd day. We were informed by our realtor that we had 3 perspective buyers. Just before the open house one of the showings from the previous 2 days put in a strong bid. Our realtor told them we’d get back to them after the open house. After a few hours went by after the OH we reached out to the other 2 perspective buyers’ realtors and they said their clients were stills deciding so if we had a strong bid on our hands that we should take it. So we accptd. 2 days later we hear out the buyers were havin trouble with their financial guy because he estimatd the numbers wrong to figure in flood and home insurance. Flood insurance was stated in our listing. Bad news the buyer wanted to back out of the contract. So we now have to put the house back on the market (hate the stigma). The inspection was never done. They want their $2k EM back...