Get legal help or negotiate?

[Patricia Nguyen]

I went into contract with a new home builder.  $1K earnest deposit, $10K options deposit.  I only paid $3K of the $10K options deposit because they never invoiced me or sent me bill reminders.

During closing, I could not get a loan so am using the financing contingency to get out of the deal.  Now, they say they wont' return my earnest money deposit because I breached the contract.  Given the small dollar amounts, would you get a lawyer/small claims court (probably be $1K of fees) or just negotiate?