Signed a contract to sell in May, limiting inspection to only major items. Buyers came back with mostly minor requests (which we agreed to fix anyway) but asked for a new driveway because their inspection flagged it as poor condition. We declined to fix or provide credits as we had another offer SUBSTANTIALLY higher (that came in just hours after we accepted their offer, so we could have canceled during attorney review but felt it was the wrong thing to do). Buyers agreed to move forward without any repair or credits.
They pushed off closing for a while because they were traveling, which we weren’t thrilled about. Some other red flags popped up as well. On the day of closing, their attorney emails our attorney asking for almost $50k because the condition of the property changed since their inspection, citing numerous issues. This was very clearly a money grab and nothing changed since the inspection. We were easily able to prove most of the issues existed previously with photos from before the house was listed. They dropped most of those claims.
However, they’re still claiming there is water seepage in the basement, and the contract says we will deliver the house free of basement seepage. We don’t agree that there is seepage and it’s our word against theirs. They refused to close.
After lots of back and forth trying to negotiate credits, we can’t come to an agreement. They’re not asking to walk away, they just want money from us. My attorney kept their deposit since they are failing to close and there isn’t any proof of seepage. The buyers of course want their deposit back unless we give them something like $35k in credits to close. They’re threatening to sue for the deposit back claiming we are breaching the contract.
Looking for some opinions on how to proceed here, and validation that we are taking the right approach. Our lawyer seems confident we can take damages out of their deposit, and that we should re-list the house and find a new buyer. He isn’t a litigator though, so I’m not sure his opinion on our likelihood of winning in court holds a lot of weight.
I’m debating bringing in an engineer so we have an “official” opinion that there is no seepage, although it seems the burden of proof is on the buyers to show there is an issue. I don’t think it would get them to close, it might just be useful in court.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. Lots of mixed opinions. Most popular answer seems to be “listen to your attorney” which is the course we will continue to take. I’ll also be hiring an independent third party, that’s both a licensed inspector and professional engineer, to perform their own investigation. I’m extremely confident they will not find seepage and it will help bolster our case in court. I’ll also be getting a second opinion from a litigation attorney as to our odds of winning. We have detailed records of the long list of issues the buyer brought up during the walk-through, and then later admitting that most of them are inadmissible, which will help to paint a clear picture of their intentions.