Breach the contract and forfeit your earnest money2.

Imagine if failure to renew your registration meant that you forfeited your car. 

I personally couldn’t imagine forfeiting so much to taxes or any other built in regulatory measure in the state.

My advice is to always forfeit and reduce the price if your broker allows it as then there are no tax implications

@Colleen F. we lost in court using "deposit forfeit" language. 

If you fail to sign the lease and pay rent by the agreed rent, you will forfeit the deposit and we will place the rental back on the market.When someone inquires, cut/paste your response into an email.

@Allan LealAn alternative would be some kind of a contract for deed or a lease purchaseI like lease purchase better, you have a lease first and last months rent or whatever the maximum-security deposit is, and a sale and purchase agreement, which has a long settling date in the future, and get a very large earnest money depositIn California the maximum is 3% that buyers can forfeit in case you don't get the mortgageI like to lease purchase because buyers really do need to get their mortgage soonI'm happy to talk to you on the phone about it

Hobby landlords tend to approach all aspects of the business from the perspective of doing as little work as absolutely possible in return forfeiting the higher profits. 

But then I found out that a Nueces County (Texas) judge could order my property forfeit to satisfy a small claims JP court judgment, so I went to Allstate and raised my homeowners liability limits.   :-) 

Because if you were happy with the house prior to discovering the lot was smaller than stated then just buy it...or forfeit your deposit if you think it will eat at you forever.