First time Custom Finishes

[Matthew Hicks]

Hi Everyone,

We are custom finishing one of our flips for the first time.  The interested buyers have loosely agreed to a 5% deposits and a (negotiable) 50% deposit on any upgrades.  They haven't yet asked me about refund-ability of said deposits.  As a first timer, I'm not really familiar with what is "standard" if anything.  My primary goal is simply to protect myself if they walk away and we've already completed a considerable amount of their "custom" work.  

To that end, I was thinking that $10k of the initial deposit would be non-refundable, subject to me acting as expected (aka I don't take the deposit and never start construction, or something else egregious), and also that the 50%, or negotiated deposit, on upgrades would entirely non-refundable.  The idea there being that i'm taking a larger risk by putting in upgrades that aren't standard for the neighborhood and would be bearing more risk on these expenditures if the buyer walks away.  

Does that seem fair and reasonable based on industry standards?

Thanks everyone.