Took possession, sellers haven't moved

[Cathy Malmrose]

My son bought his first home, $400k, and took possession, but the Sellers asked for another week to move. For some reason the realtor didn't suggest a lease back to cover this time period so now my son "owns" a house but has not taken possession and was not given the keys. He is a very generous person by nature so I wasn't surprised to hear he is allowing them time to move because he is single, doesn't need to move right away and is busy with work anyway. What is the shortest way to explain to him (without stressing him) that tells him the realtor dropped the ball? Big time. So far I have: 

1. This is a holdover seller situation and the realtor put him in a situation of liability.  

2. Who has insurance on the home while they are moving out?   

3. Who covers any damages that occur to the home during move out? 

I don't know what else to point out. All I know is that the Mama Bear in me is furious. This is in Utah, a state where I bought and sold only two SFRs, but both times were problematic. (The last transaction ended with the disbursement check amount being different from what it said on my closing docs -- I was the seller, I signed first. I didn't notice until I had driven away and when I went back to the title company, everyone else had left the office and the clueless secretary said "Oh, they changed what they wanted to pay because the buyers said they didn't want to pay that much." They changed the dollar amounts on the document AFTER I had signed.) 

[Katherine Serrell]

Personally, I would contact a local real estate litigation attorney for a free or minimal cost ($100-150) and see what steps they reccommend. Specifically, I would ask if you needed to start the eviction process. Evictions there take several weeks from what I have heard so best to get ahead of it. I would also have him email the realtor and the realtor's broker-in-charge and inform them of the situation and see what they reccomend. 

1. Yes they absolutely did

2. He needs to contact his insurance company and inform them!!! They may need to alter the policy temporaily to make sure he is covered since there is a "tenant" there. 

3. The sellers cover the damage but good luck getting them to pay it. You would have to take them to small claims court and even then you would still have to collect the money post-ruling which could get tricky depending on the laws. 

If you really wanted to you could contact your real estate commission and see what your options are as well. The realtor truly dropped the ball (could definitly argue negligence) and if push comes to shove the real estate brokerage/firm likely has measures to take care of this. They should have done a $0 leaseback or an addendum (depending on how the state's purchase contracts are written). 

Not offering legal advice becuase I am in fact not a lawyer but I was in a situation where a realtor also dropped tha ball when I was first starting out and my attorney said if I end up in a lawsuit the realtor's brokerage has insurance for this purpose and we would name the insurance as a party in the lawsuit and they would handle it that way. That gave me some peace of mind. The realtor ended up handeling it after I basically said (and made it very clearn) this was her mess and according to my attorney she needed to clean it up. I really didnt want to be pushy but thats what I ultimately had to do.