3 Ways To Legally Back Out Of Your Home Sale
So, you decided to sell your home. You went through the process of hiring a real estate agent, staging your home, scheduling open houses, and everything in between. Eventually, you found a committed buyer who entered into a sales contract. Before the closing date, however, you began having seller's remorse. Is it too late to back out of the deal and keep your home? Not necessarily, although it's certainly more of a challenge for sellers than it is for buyers. Consider one of the following options for legally backing out of your real estate contract before the closing date.
Honesty is the Best Policy
Before you start looking for legal loopholes or consider getting a real estate attorney involved, consider simply having an open and honest discussion with the buyer. Explain your reasoning for changing your mind about the sale of the home.
It's possible that the buyer will be more understanding than you'd expect and will bow out of the sale in a mutually agreeable manner. If the buyer still seems unwilling to budge, you may also consider offering monetary compensation for his or her wasted time and efforts. Paying back the buyer's already-invested money with interest, for example, can be a good way to sway a buyer to back out of the deal.
Look for Broken Contract Contingencies
Unfortunately, if honesty alone doesn't work, you may need to begin looking for legal loopholes through which you can back out of the real estate contract. For example, many sellers these days include a "home-purchase" contingency that allows sellers to back out of a deal if they're unable to find a new home for themselves by a certain date. Furthermore, if your contract has a contingency that requires the buyer to have obtained financing for the home by a certain date (and he or she has not met this contingency), you may also be able to back out of the deal.
Go to Court, Seeking "Specific Performance"
Finally, if all else fails and you still don't want to sell your home, you'll most likely need to go to court. This is where having a real estate attorney, like those at Schulze Howard & Cox, on your side can make all the difference. One way in which you may be able to back out of the sale of your home is to seek a "specific performance" ruling from the judge. However, even if the judge rules in your favor and allows you to keep your home, you should expect to be ordered to reimburse the buyer for court costs and other lost expenses.