Real Estate Contracts - Advice Needed

[Ronald Rich]

Hi-

The seller agreed to sell 2 properties to me. He wanted the total price to add up to 475K and I was planning to live in one of the houses. I offered House A at 250K (Worth ~250K)and house B at 225K (worth ~300K). House B is more valuable than House A but house A had a vacant unit so I did FHA (3.5% down) and 25% down on House B. I was planning to live in House A, both are duplexes.

Originally they were listed together on MLS and then they were listed separately by the sellers agent. The seller did not care what I offered on each house as long as it added up to 475K, hence me offering lower on the more valuable property. I offered on both properties after they tried to sell them separately on the MLS (Seller still desired to sell them together).

During the inspection, House A had a torn up roof and bad plumbing (estimated 40K to fix). House B went well. We signed two separate P&S's with no contingency that they had to be sold together or one depended on the other. Verbally, we communicated that I wanted to buy both (it was my intention and that is how we justified pricing it the way we did) but I do not want to move forward with house A due to the roof and plumbing concerns.

I want to move forward with house B but I know the seller sold me house B at that price due to me paying a premium for House A. I have about 75K of equity in the house after I buy it. In the email containing the signed P&S, my agent stated my interest to buy both (not interested in just 1) in the email containing both P&S's but nothing was written in the actual contracts. My intent changes based on what I found out during inspection. Both houses have separate financing and inspection contingencies on them. My lawyer thinks that I would win the case but I am unsure whether to pursue this legal battle or not. I want to because I can get a property at a steep discount but afraid of the legal bills.

1.) Does the seller have an out at this point? What if he refuses to close?

2.) If he is willing to $ into escrow (highly unlikely), would you still consider pursuing both? Once I back out of House A, he is not going to want to sell me House B for that price. He has already stated he would sell it for much more separately.

3) My lawyer talked about suing for specific performance and issuing a linds pendens on the property to cloud the title if he refuses to close. Thoughts? Anyone go through anything similar before?

Any other thoughts, ideas, or perspectives would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Ron