Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New Jersey

Good faith deposit

We have an attorney handling our estate and will contact him next week. Wanted another opinion. Just had a purchase agreement with good faith deposit for sale of home. Buyer signed agreement and aware house is sold in as is condition. After home inspection-which showed some needed brick mortar work up near roof and removal of asbestos clad pipe in basement and replace some wood flooring on porch-amounting to about $20K for the estimate we got. They want to cancel contract even though we would credit them the $20K for repairs. Are they entitled to their deposit back?


Asked on 7/04/09, 12:39 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Re: Good faith deposit

You first must look to your agreement, to see if it addresses this. It is difficult to say anthing more, w/o reading your agreement, because there are dozens of "point-counterpoint" arguements that could be made. Sorry I could not be of more help.

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Answered on 7/04/09, 12:51 pm
John Corbett Corbett Law Firm LLC

Re: Good faith deposit

If your contract is in the usual form for NJ residential real property, the buyer's can't cancel the contract and you do not have to give any credit. That said, there are many variants that appear in inspection clauses. So, a close reading of the contract is necessary to tell for sure.

Many buyer's are surprised to find that their right to have the property inspected usually does not give them the right to avoid the contract. Sometimes, it does not even give them the right to have anything corrected unless the problem is with one of the warranted areas.

See also: http://info.corbettlaw.net/lawguru.htm

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Answered on 7/05/09, 12:31 am


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