Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York

I am in the process of selling my home. I put the house up for sale on June 2020-all possible buyers were required to obtain a preapproval letter prior to looking at the house. We received an offer that we accepted. The buyer otained a commitment letter that was emailed to our realtor. We were suppose to close on the house Aug 20, 2020. That date has come and gone. Our lawyer emailed the buyer's lawyer the 'Time of the Essence' letter indicating that we needed to close by November 9, 2020. The buyer indicated to us that as of now he is unable to obtain a mortgage because he sold a property back in Feb 2019,but that closing did not go well. We REALLY have no idea why the buyer's bank will not give him a mortgage but we tried to settle it out of court by offering to tell the buyer that we will take 20,000 of his 25, 000 downpayment. He said absolutely not. He said we will go into litigation to stop us from receiving the downpayment. So my questions are:

1) Do we have a leg to stand on and fight to get the downpayment inf ull?

2) Buyer stated he will put a lein on our house-Can he do that?

3) Can we still sell our house if there are litigations procedures for the downpayment?

We are at a loss as to what rights we have right now...We would appreciate if you could answer the above 3 questions. Thank you.

2 Answers from Attorneys

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