Legal Question in Real Estate Law in North Carolina
Breach of contract.
Recently a contract that I entered into was cancelled by the seller / contractor and money that was given to the seller / contractor as a land hold agreement has not be returned. The contractor claims that the land hold ageement that I signed entilted him to the money to clear his land, on which my house was to be built, and that I knew if he, the seller, cancelled the agreement he could keep the money for clearing his land. To date I have been given a check for a portion of the funds and because I didn't cash it, based on my attorney's advice, the seller has now stopped payment on the check. Now I have NO money and am faced with a costly law suit to get my money. Furthermore, since my seller's land is in both his and his wife's name that I can not place a lien on it or his wife can sue ME. Or if I place a lien on his business he can sue me for damaging his livelyhood. I'm not sure, at this time, who the law protects, I've lost money and now have to spend more money to go to court where, according to my lawyer, I still may never see a dime. What can I do to pursuade the seller to return my money?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Refusal to Return Earnest Money.
Congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of getting screwed in land transactions.
For accurate legal advice concerning your situation in NC, consult your NC attorney.
Genreally, you are have a breach of contract action and potentially a specific performance for that particular piece of land action.
Your recouse is to bring a (costly) suit in the circuit court (I think that is the court of main pleanry jurisdiction in NC) in the county where either the land is located and/or the defendant lives. If you want specific performance, you may have to file in the county where the land is located.
If the equity in the Husband and Wife land can be identified (co-tenants and opposed to joint tenants with the right of survivorship), you may be able to craft a lien that will attach only to the Husband's portion of the land.
If you are prepared to fight it out anyway, which you may not be, you may consider liening the land anyway. Screw his wife and her threats of suing you. They took your money and will not give it back. If the husband's equity is in the property, you may want to consider (it may be a high risk strategy given the facts) slamming the lien on their anyway. To get it off they have to sue you. When they do, you hit them with your counterclaim.
This WILL NOT WORK if 100% of the land is in the wife's name and was always in the wife's name. If they can show that you WRONGFULLY liened their property, you will end up worse than you began. Not only will you have lost your first land contract, you will owe attorney's fees for a wrongful lien suit. However, given your facts it is an option I would suggest to a land client that we run a title search and a least consider as an option before dismissing it out of hand.
Discuss it with your attorney.
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