For sale by owner, seller wants to back out

[Melanie D Melton]

Hi, We live in Southern Illinois and we found a house on the fb marketplace that was for sale by owner. We viewed the home, made an offer for asking price, they accepted,  and we signed a standard real estate purchase agreement. Our closing date is this Monday and after calling to arrange an agreed upon final walkthrough, the seller became very rude and went on a rant about what a good deal we got and they knew it must have appraised way more than asking price and threatened to back out. We waived an inspection but our lender of course had an appraisal performed. We did get a pretty good deal but to me that's beside the point. After reading and rereading our contract, it states mandatory mediation is required before going to court. The cost is split between the two. I feel this is our last chance at owning a home. We, like many others, are being priced out of the housing market with the low inventory,  sky high prices and rising interest rates. The phone call ended with the seller stating they needed 1 more day to get their belongings moved. We are supposed to sign our mortgage papers Monday morning.  We have no idea what to do here!

[Bill B.]

Obviously you always do a walk through the day you ar closing. What’s your plan if you closed on the deal and when you went to the house it had burned down the day before? Your insurance won’t cover it. Ok, maybe it’s not burned down, just a big tree fell through the roof. Or the blocked every drain and turned the water on 3 days ago.  All the appliances are gone? There’s big holes in every wall?

I wouldn’t be excited about closing while they still occupied. But this would PROBABLY be way worse in California than Illinois. But how much better are they? What’s your plan if a week goes by, a month goes by, and they’re still living in the property? You’ll seem extreme when you ask for $5k or $10k to be held in escrow over 1 day, but your counter argument is, “it’s only one day right?” But you might have moving damage when they finally move out. CYA and GL. Remind them they’re saving 6% by not using realtors, that’s probably 10’s of thousands of dollars.