All Forum Posts by: Eric Washington

1) As @Russell Brazil said, use the Maryland Realtor's forms and do not go trying to write your own (I'm surprised that your agent is even entertaining the idea).

2) I advise my investor clients who require an inspection period to use the MR "As-Is Addendum" with Section B initialed.  This will give you the unilateral right to terminate the contract, for any reason, within the specified time frame and is much cleaner then the "Property Inspection Addendum" you referenced in your OP.

For the strongest offer, get your estimates done ahead of time and use the "As-Is Addendum with Section A initialed.  You loose the right to terminate in this case but the chances of offer acceptance, especially on bank owned properties, goes way up.

Good luck.

@Eric Washington

You are basically saying, you want to add "Sorry, I made a mistake" clause :)

Why would they accept that offer when you are basically saying you are not even sure about your offer.

It seems like waste of time.

I think should change your verbiage.

@Eric Washington

Just use the form available to you.

What would be your verbiage? 

Hey BP!

I'm hoping to get some input on what Baltimore neighborhoods I should really look into. At this point I'm not interested in looking at anything in the city limits, so primarily Baltimore County. So besides looking at crime heat maps, and asking around to some friends that are loosely familiar with the area the information I have is very limited. I do live in MD but I am about an hour and a half drive away so driving around Baltimore randomly isn't going to work with my fairly busy life.  

As always help is greatly appreciated and I am grateful for any thoughts. 

It depends, how much is the deposit that you are trying to protect with this language? I've bound contracts with as little as $100 and in that scenario I don't really care if my language protects my deposit since there isn't much exposed. But when we're talking a more significant downpayment then absolutely have an attorney review it. It could cost you a a little bit but it's well worth it to make sure you're deposit is protected 

Do you have a closing attorney lined up? If not talk to your agent and/or lender and see who they would recommend. Then I would run it by them and tell them about the various reasons that you may want to back out of the deal. They can attach an addendum to make sure you're protected. 

In my opinion deposits tend to get exposed when an agent gives you legal advice. Always make sure your team is staying in their swim lanes.  

If you do business in a nonattorney state, which it appears is the case because that is a Maryland contract, then you need to use the preapproved forms if it is a residential transaction.  Simply put, no listing agent is going to accept an offer if its not on forms they are familiar with.  By using nonapproved forms, you force a seller to have to incur the cost of hiring an attorney to review, which no one is realistically going to do because its simply not done in nonattorney states like Maryland.