Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois
recovering the earnest money
we purchased a townhome from a man ,who was also an employee of the builder.
we paid 15k as earnest money to this man.
At the time of closing after 6mnths,the builder's people say that the 15k was the man's commision as a sale's employee and it was not counted towards the earnest!!!!!!!!.
This was a shock to us ,becoz the 'assignment fees' was never mentioned to us and we were buying the house which was in the man's name and not the builders. the man was not only absent from the closing ,but unreachable.we mutually backed away from the contract.
Later that man gave us a signed promissory note to pay 15k .
We recently received a legal notice from the builder, that if we don't close within 7 days, we will also lose $1000 earnest money and will have no claim to this property.
Since this was a dispute between the seller(man) and the buyer(us),what right the builder has to send us a legal notice?
Is it possible that the builder has bought this house back from the man-- but how can they buy a disputed property?
The builder says he is not obligated to pay us our 15k back,since it was man's asgmnt fees.
what are the chances of getting the money back?Is the builder liable to pay if the man ran away,can we claim legalexpenses
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: recovering the earnest money
You must look to your contract. That will prevail. If the man is not a realtor, you probably don't owe him a commission. I also agree that you should record the contract so as to preserve notice to any potential buyers.
Re: recovering the earnest money
i would need to see a copy of the contract.
the man would only be entitled to a real estate commission once the property sold unless he was not licensed and then he would not be entitled to any commission.
You may want to consider recording the contract against the property, at least it would be a lien against the property.
if you don't do anything quickly you will lose it all
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