Legal Question in Real Estate Law in North Carolina
lease-back addendum in purchase contract
A buyer put an offer on our home with $2000 earnest deposit. We negotiated and settled on a price. When the final contract was drawn up, we asked if he'd be willing to lease it back to us... he agreed and our realtor put an addendum in the contract 'Buyer agrees to a lease back (rental agreement) with the sellers until their home is built in April or May of 2007'. After near daily reminders and requests, he finally sends over a rental agreement 12 days before closing. We don't agree to the terms and counter with a lower rent. 10 days before closing I notify the buyer that we will not be renting back the house.
It is now 7 days before closing and he's threatening to not close and even sue us if we don't rent from him.
We never signed a rental agreement. The only thing he has was essentially our request that he be open to renting the house back to us. There is no contingency in the contract that says he can back out if we don't rent from him. Does he have a leg to stand on? Can I keep the earnest money? Can I counter sue for specific performance? Thanks!!
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: lease-back addendum in purchase contract
These type of questions are usually too complicated to be answered on this type of forum. It would require detailed review of allt he documents, circumstances, etc. Furthermore, even after that, the answer will always be it depends - both sides may have valid arguments. One side might have better facts, the other side might have better law, etc.
In your case, the practical answer is that you would not sue for specific performance. It would be a waste of your money, the court would not be likely to award specific performance against a Buyer, and you would not be likely to recoup attorneys fees. If you can't agree, then you could refuse to return the earnest money, and one of you would bring an action in small claims court.
If you really wanted to, you could also sue for damages - for instance if you ended up selling the property for less than this Buyer was paying.
My advice would probably be that it wouldn't be worth it.
- Jeff
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