Enforcing purchase contract - seller canceled breaching contract

[Greg Gaudet]

Aloha all,

I’m buying a rental property, half way through escrow (45 day escrow bc I’m using a mortgage since sellers not in a rush). I found the deal off market, but still suggested the seller pay a realtor 1% to walk them through escrow, but he refused.

Anyway I'm getting a good price, but it's not the typical 20-30% discount we look for, but I'm making that up by adding value in other creative ways since finding those perfect BRRR deals has been extra tough as the markets gotten even hotter.

So I did inspections, found the roof was bad and sent the seller an addendum along with the reports and estimates asking him to share the cost with me (about 20k, out of an 850k+ sale). He responded “I’m not interested in your counter offer, cancel escrow and refund all deposits immediately”. He has already signed cancellation docs (of course I’m not signing, so we’re stuck in limbo for now).

I then explained to him that he does not have a contingency, and he is breaching our contract by attempting to cancel simply bc he was offended that I asked for a repair credit. I explained that we both need to agree to cancel at this point, and I have $4k invested in inspections and other DD on his house already, plus conditional loan approval and a low rate locked m, so I’m not interested in canceling. He asked how much I have invested, and what it would take to make me whole if he decided not to sell.

I strongly suspect he got a higher offer and wants to cancel to take it.

Anyway there’s many more details; but I’m just wandering if anyone has experience with enforcing a contract and performance? Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I know I have a strong case if we have to settle in court... (although hopefully he’ll have to pay my attorneys fees bc if the battle cost 50k that makes the deal much less appealing).

[Stephen Keighery]

@Greg Gaudet you should record your contract with the city. This will cloud the title so he can't sell to somebody else for a period without you agreeing. In Louisiana it is 12 months but your state laws will be different. You could sue for non-performance but not worth it.