Seller not approving to disburse earnest money

[Vish Rav]

Hi BP,

Wanted to get some feedback on this forum. I was in active negotiation with a Seller for a duplex property in Portland, OR. The Seller misrepresented the operating expenses for the duplex during the course of the transaction. After the due diligence period was done, they presented us with new documents contradicting the initial documents for the operating expenses. Basically, the Seller was paying all utilities on the rental property and was claiming that the agreement was for the tenant to pay these expenses. Since I was going to keep the tenant stay on after the transaction, I didn't want to close on a transaction yielding negative cash flow. Hence, I went ahead and terminated the transaction (after trying to negotiate the price down). Now I would like for the Seller to disburse the Earnest monies and also pay me back for my home inspection and appraisal fee. If all of this information was disclosed up front, I wouldn't have offered a selling price above the asking price. 

Earnest money is with escrow and currently in dispute. 

Should I take this to small claims or are there other options? 

Thanks!

[Russell Brazil]

Tell your agent to do their job and get it released.