Renegotiate a Land Contract

[Christian Hutchinson]

I bought a property on land contract.  Renovations are going, and there have been some hiccups.  I have a 3 year note at 6.5% and a 25 year amortization. We have a monthly payment of $1750/mo and it reduces the principal.

During the taking inspection period and taking possession. there have been some items directly attributed to the previous owner that caused some problems.  Such as:

• He had no security deposit, personal information, or payment history on tenants (tenants said he did).  Tenants said they paid he said he hadn't been paid but these tenants were there for 3 years.
• These same tenants abandoned the property once I took possession and introduced myself
• On multiple occasions during the purchase process the tenants cancelled access to the building, showed up late, or said we couldn't see certain places due to privacy.
• These tenants because of their abandonment and repeated sporadic contacts delayed renovations because I couldn't remove their property. For instance saying they would come Tuesday not show up, then call Friday to come Sunday not show up.
• Once I removed all the tenants items I found several mattresses covering sewage openings (cleanouts, drains, etc) that concealed the sewage overrunning along with bottles of bleach and freshener. Basically, the basement flood due to storms, so the mattresses soak up the water.  It concealed the evidence.
• Lastly, the garage (3 car) was rented to a storage company, we were going to throw items out called the previous owner.  He stated that wasn't his stuff and he receives rent for storing the items.  That was the final straw.

So instances of money collected post sale, purposely concealed issues on the property, and not enforcing the tenants to provide access needed to the property and it appears he maintains a relationship with said tenants, it appears like he was in on the caper.

Can I request a lower buyout amount.  How do I approach a renegotiation of the buyout. Of course we agreed to a price and legally we are bound to it. But what are my options? I'm looking for a $10K reduction.  Also, I have 32 months left on a 36 month LC. Can I use leverage of cashing him out faster(by Dec 2019)?

It was still a good purchase, but had I known some of these issues, I would pushed harder for a price reduction.  Also, the previous refused to evict prior to our possession of the building.  We had requested the building is empty on possession.  Which all the tenants were out but one unit. So could we claim non-performance?