Newsflash: Backing out of a deal (as a buyer)

Seen a lot of posts about backing out of homes from the sellers POV, but my story is from the buyers side that I wanted to get feedback on.Home is in California, we were the highest bidders on a home about 30 days ago. The disclosures said that there were issues with the roof and foundation, and both of these looked costly. The sellers agent had confirmed, that the seller would take care of the roofing issue during escrow. Once we made an offer, however, the sellers agent had removed the offer of repairing the roof and wanted to sell the home “as is” and we waived contingencies to be competitive. That did leave a bad taste in our mouth, but we really liked the home and figured spending another 20k on repairs for the roof isn’t reason enough to walk out of a home we may live in for 10+ years.In regard to the foundation, the home inspection report mentioned cracks in the foundation, but the inspector said that it should be evaluated further by an expert and they were not able to get a good enough look to make sound judgements. The seller had already done a foundation report 4 years ago, that they had disclosed they have, but it hadn’t been shared. A week till closing, and our realtor had asked for that report, but she hadn’t received it. Then, 2 days prior to closing and the sellers agent sends over the report that goes over the issues with the foundation along with a quote. The quote mentioned nearly 30k of work that needed to be done (not including permits from the city). Apparently, the rebar had expanded and caused cracks. The rebar needs to be replaced and cracks sealed. While we knew there were issues, we didn’t know the extent and had waived contingencies.The sellers agent claims he had sent the report in an earlier email to my agent, but my agent says she never got any report till 2 days prior to closing. Since this is new information to me, the buyer, I have full right to reconsider the deal. I’m not sure which RE is lying about the report, or maybe someone made a mistake, but I do trust my agent. We still very much like the home, but feel that the sellers should offer credit to help get the foundation fixed, especially since we agreed to do the roof even after they backed out.My concern here would be if things go sour, the sellers don’t want to give any credit, are we forced to buy the home or lose our earnest money? We really don’t want to lose the home, but we are starting to feel like we’re being taken advantage of.

Read more at https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1dn70lp/backing_out_of_a_deal_as_a_buyer/?utm_source=ifttt

Leave a comment