Owner Back Out, But I Want Back In - Posted by MAJA PA

Posted by Gary-OH on April 04, 2004 at 11:30:54:

First you quickly need to check with the county court house and see what is needed in order to file an affidavit of contract. That way you cloud the title and they can not sell to anybody else without contacting you.

Next have your atty start a performance of contract lawsuit.

Good luck,

Gary

Owner Back Out, But I Want Back In - Posted by MAJA PA

Posted by MAJA PA on April 04, 2004 at 08:17:53:

I recently signed an Agreement of Sale with a property owner on a very good deal (8k, comps @ 55k). I told the owner to call the title company with his info so we could get the ball rolling. A week goes by, but the owner never called the title company. I call the owner up and now he says he doesn’t feel like selling because the property has “sentimental value” (yeah right!). I called the owner, saying that I didn’t want things to go this way, but if I have to I will get a lawyer involved, but no reply b/c he’s ignored my phone call…So now I sit with the forms for filing a lis pendens because I got so much to lose. My question is, has anyone gone through this situation, and if so, did you wind up getting the property? What steps should I take because I feel this is unfair b/c he had no problems when we sat down and signed the paperwork, and I’m not giving him more money. Any suggestions would be appreciated, especially from PA investors…

Thanks in advance

Re: Owner Back Out, But I Want Back In - Posted by michaela-ATL

Posted by michaela-ATL on April 05, 2004 at 06:49:22:

Maja,
I’ve filed and won a performance suit. I signed the contract june 2001 and I closed dec. 2003. If I had know, that it would take this long, I probably wouldn’t have done it. BUT, now I’m very glad, that I did. The values ahve come up. My profit is somewhere in the 100-150k range, depending on what it sells for at the end. I missed a lot of other deals in the meantime, because this was a majoer rehab and lenders don’t want to lend on more than one deal at a time. SO, I kept myself free for that one. My contract stated, that the 'loser would ahve to pay attorney fees to the winner, if it came to a performance lawsuit.

Basically, it worked out well for me. But I don’t think your profit would have been worth it to me. I would file an affidavit (make sure you handwrite at the top, that they also file it under the seller’s name) to keep him from selling to someone else and then wait until he comes around.

Michaela

Re: Owner Back Out, But I Want Back In - Posted by Sean

Posted by Sean on April 04, 2004 at 13:53:19:

I agree with David… simple answer is NEXT.

Trying to force a seller to sell is not worth the time… Even if you could win a specific performance lawsuit its just not worth it.

No judge in PA is going to FORCE a seller to sell to you, regardless of what your contract states… should get your hand money back if you gave any, and you might be able to get a damage judgement, but really at the end of the day what good is that?

At the end of the day, if this house isn’t in bad shape, judge is probably going to give you a dressing down anyway if you try to drag the seller into court.

Stop crying over spilt milk and move on to the next one. You can spend your time effort and energy trying to get your 37k deal back from this thing, and in the mean time miss a 1/2 dozen other as good or better deals in the process.

You can file your affidavit of contract as suggested by Gary to cloud the title, meaning he’ll have to come deal with you at some point in the future if he tries to sell because it will cloud the title… but frankly even that is not something I would waste my time on.

If a seller doesn’t want to sell or changes their mind, and you have little to none of your own money invested in the deal… just walk away, its not worth it. All you are going to do is make a bad situation worse, create more headaches for yourself and cost yourself a lot of time, agravation and energy on a dead deal which should and would be better spent on finding more deals.

Half Full… - Posted by David Alexander

Posted by David Alexander on April 04, 2004 at 12:38:20:

or Half empty…

Next…

You can wine about this deal… but, the reality… it’s faster to develop the ability to find more deals and just say next…

I’ve been there…

Honestly, all probability… he found another buyer…

Whether he did or didnt… it’s better in my opinion… to just go to the next deal…

Otherwise… you just end up in a a bunch of neagative pursuits…

There are better uses of your time…

David Alexander