So wait - do the “other buyers” have a contract to buy, or not, OP? Usually validating that work has been satisfactorily done only happens for a contract that is just before closing date. If they just presented their offer it may be a short time till closing, but that is certainly done sometimes. And yep, that is far from an ‘as-is’ sale!
Did you submit an offer as well, OP? If so, I guess you are the ‘back-up’ position in case the current buyers do cancel their contract using one of the back-out clauses. Usually buyers can get out of the contract, but for sellers it is very difficult to do so.
[QUOTE=FalseImpression;8814578]
You mean the sellers can deal with several prospective buyers at the same time?
My DD and her husband just bought a house sitting on about 2 acres. They do not want the horses at home. But there was a lot of interest and several offers came in after one “open house” day. Theirs was the first! The seller accepted it, but the real estate agent kept telling them there were other offers. However, neither the agent or the seller were allowed to look at them until the negotiations were over with the first offer. If they had backed out, they would have opened the second offer.
Same thing happened when they sold their condo two weeks later. Several offers but you deal with the first one first and then go to the next one.
This is to prevent the wars that took place in Toronto and elsewhere.
Luckily, my DD and her husband were ready to jump on the property and it went their way![/QUOTE]
Definitely NOT that way anywhere I have lived in the U.S. Prospective buyers need to put a respond-by date on their offer so that sellers don’t sit on it waiting for more offers.
I know someone who is, right now, negotiating with the second offer, while the first offer waits to see how that comes out. The second offer has more desirable terms that the first offer can’t match. But if they can’t reach an agreement on price, the sellers will start negotiating with the first offer. The first offer prospective buyer isn’t thrilled with the situation, but there is little they can do about it, other than cancel their offer, and they haven’t yet done that.
[QUOTE=fordtraktor;8814872]…
Now if they’d already accepted an offer, they can’t just back out and accept another one that is a little better but I believe agents in many places have a duty to present any offer they receive until one is accepted. I am not a real estate expert though, so perhaps some of our realtors can shed light on this and whether it is everywhere now.[/QUOTE]
That’s correct - once an offer is accepted and becomes a purchase contract, sellers usually have very few options to back out. And yes, they can know all the details of subsequent offers. (Not a realtor, but have some experience in real estate.)
However … although a seller can be sued for refusing to honor a purchase contract, in fact there is a certain amount of chicanery that goes on, with few, if any, consequences. If certain unethical professional buyers hear of an exceptionally good price on a contract to buy a property, they will try to “go behind” the contract and approach the seller with a slightly better offer. Try to convince the sellers to ditch their existing contract - it happens sometimes. I guess that is part of the “wars” FalseImpression is referring to.
A buyer or a seller can duck a contract by simply not showing up for closing. No one comes to arrest them or anything. Theoretically the other party can go after them legally, but it’s expensive and there is no certainty of outcome. These situations aren’t common but they do happen, and often with no real consequences.
Canada has tried to bring some order and rationality to certain business practices through active government oversight, whereas in the U.S. the only enforcement is if one injured party goes after another through the courts, with no assurance of outcome.
