Earnest money stuck in limbo

[Francis Rusnak]

Have an off-market house we were supposed to close on 4 months ago. The seller was the one who contacted us to sell, then he randomly goes MIA so we never close on his house.

Clearing up the books and go to get the 1k earnest money back and the title company tells me we need his signature to release it. 

The seller didn't have an agent and the attorney who represented him is adamant he doesn't represent the client anymore -- sounds like they had a falling out. My attorney is working on it, but it doesn't sound good. Either need his signature or a court order. 

Anyone have something similar happen? 

[Crystal Smith]

Originally posted by @Francis Rusnak:

Have an off-market house we were supposed to close on 4 months ago. The seller was the one who contacted us to sell, then he randomly goes MIA so we never close on his house.

Clearing up the books and go to get the 1k earnest money back and the title company tells me we need his signature to release it. 

The seller didn't have an agent and the attorney who represented him is adamant he doesn't represent the client anymore -- sounds like they had a falling out. My attorney is working on it, but it doesn't sound good. Either need his signature or a court order. 

Anyone have something similar happen? 

It's happened to us before on our own deals but always eventually got the $ back. 

We do have a situation now with a client who had to kill a deal during the inspection period. It was a listed, not an off-market deal, and the seller would not sign the release of the EMD. Everyone, the attorneys on both sides & the seller's agent, agreed that our client should receive his EMD back but the seller would not release it. Because this was a listed deal we used the standard Illinois 7.0 contract. There's a clause in the contract where the holder of the EMD can release has the ability to release the funds back to the buyer if there's an impasse. We're forcing the holder of the EMD to execute that clause, which he is. The seller has 14 days to object to the execution of the clause but we're forcing the issue.