Could use some help w/ a wholesale situation

[Monique R.]

Hey everyone. My partner and I have a deal with a seller and we have an end buyer who is very eager to buy. He is ready to close ASAP. The seller with the option to purchase contract signed the contract, but will not send it back to us without a $10,000 deposit.

The purchase price of the single family house is $70k. This deposit issue never came up prior to our walk through and or before we sent the seller the option to purchase contract. THe buyer really wants to buy it ASAP and is ready to give us half of our assignment fee which is $2500. Both the buyer and seller are familiar with wholesaling.

The buyer insisted that we use her title company and she needs the original option to purchase contract in order to begin the closing process and also to run the title. Now another issue occured out of the blue where the seller told my partner and I that he has a loan for an undisclosed amount of money with the bank that is in his LLC. He will not tell us how much he owes, but that he will take care of it as soon as we give him a new contract with the closing date and the deposit of $10,000. The end buyer is reluctant to give him the 10k as we would be too. The seller also does not want the money to go into escrow he wants a certified check written out to his company that the house is under. I'm drawing a blank as to how to make this deal work. I feel uncomfortable with the buyer having to shell out $10k. For all I know the seller could take the deposit and not take care of the loan.

Any thoughts on where we should go from here?