Earnest Money Deposit

[Damequia Montgomery]

Aloha,             

I am under contract with a seller who is refusing to give my EMD (3500) back. We went under contract, ordered the inspection, got the inspection. The inspection revealed a lot of issues with the home, the moisture inspection failed, there was some damage to the crawl space causing some structural issues. So we sent the seller a PICRA (Property Inspection Contingency Removal Addendum) asking for them to fix some of the issues, in particularly the damage in the crawl space causing the structural issues. we also asked for a price reduction because of all the things found in the inspection. sellers agreed to fixing the damage but not the reduce in price, so we counter-offered with a different price. The seller's agent asked us to send two separate documents. The first being the PICRA stating what we wanted to get fixed, the second stating the change in purchase price. I signed the change in purchase price addendum first, then signed the PICRA( which had a bullet point clearly stating to see purchase price addendum). I was told by my agent to do it like that so that I would be protected incase the deal doesn't go through. The sellers agent also wanted me to send a letter to the sellers stating why we wanted the price reduction, which we did. sellers did not respond for 5 days. we gave them a deadline to respond and told them if they didn't we would back out. Sellers did not respond on that deadline, so we sent the release agreement, now the sellers don't want to sign the release agreement.

This situation has gone to the brokerage level, with the listing agents broker saying the seller is in the right and my agents' broker saying i'm in the right. So now it seems as if I have to get a lawyer involved. So my question to you all is, Who is right? Also, does anyone have any recommendation for a real estate attorney?