HELP. Deposit has been made. Paperwork completed. Now the Buyer is trying to back-out of the sale.

I "successfully" agreed to sell my timeshare at a price of $17,000. We are using First American as the Escrow agent. All of the paper work has been signed, notarized, title has cleared, etc. The buyer put down a deposit of $750.00. First American is ready to close, just awaiting to receive the balance of the purchase price. The latest date for the closing is Monday, September 8th.

Now the buyer is doing everything to get out of the purchase. The buyer has the money to complete the sale. Do I have any legal recourse to force the completion of the sale? Or do I just receive the $750.00 buyer's down payment and the transaction never closes.

Any advice would be appreciated. I really think the buyer's behavior has been outrageous and he should be legally required to complete the sale.

Thank you very much for your advice.

Without knowing the details reflected in writing within your purchase and sales documents, it is not possible to give you even a remotely definitive answer.

That fact aside, one thing is quite certain --- you cannot force a buyer to complete a purchase if he/she/they choose not to do so. Depending on the contract terms and applicable state law, you may not even have the right to retain the down payment. Your personal disappointment and displeasure unfortunately will not supersede the contract terms and/or applicable law(s).

With due respect, you would be much better off consulting with an attorney, copies of all pertinent purchase and sales documents in hand, instead of relying upon input from a Internet discussion group which has NONE of the dates, facts or documents required to provide an informed opinion. Then again, not actually knowing any of the pertinent facts doesn't seem to deter SOME posters... ;-)

I would definitely get in touch with First American Title (and their inhouse attorney) about this situation. If all contracts were were signed by both buyer and seller and notarized, there may be more to this scenario than meets the eye but only an attorney would know, however the $750 down payment in escrow is yours to keep no matter the outcome.

Thanks very much.

I appreciate it.

I agree with Ken that you should consult with an attorney and not rely on the advice of parties.

But, since you asked I will offer my opinion. I personally think you have a cause of action for a breach of contract. Typically the suit in this situation would be for specific peformance. That is a term for a suit that seeks to enforce the buyer to follow through with the terms of the contract and pay the purchase price. The buyer may have backed out because financing fell through but whatever the reasons you are entitled to specific performance or at the least monetary damages for the buyers failure to meet the terms of the contract.

If the facts are as you present them, you have a good case and should pursue this matter.

A lesson to be learned from this example for all sellers is to demand sufficient earnest money to discourage the buyer from backing out for a frivolous reason. At the very least the seller should demand an escrow payment of 10% of the purchase price or in this case $1,700.

Thank YOU SOOO MUCH!

I appreciate it.

We recently were involved in purchasing a resale week that was advertised here on Red Week. This seller was harassing and unreasonable to the point that my husband became extremely suspicious of the seller. My husband was against buying this property from this seller from the beginning and I am the person that assured him the sale would be fine. It appears at this point most of the purchase is finished. There are a few details that I did not address in the purchase that we are working out with the resort but look like it will be fine. But we don’t always listen well to those that are closest to us.

Here is our personal experience with a recent purchase of a resale timeshare if anyone would like to read about it. After the paperwork arrived from the title company, (which happened to be First American title, and was perfectly professional and prompt throughout the entire process), we started to coordinate and make arrangements to get the needed signatures and payment in place. Around work schedules, severe weather, power and internet failures, out of town business trips other personal commitments we still made the rounds to the notary and bank.

In our case we were making all the reasonable efforts to do the closing and it was completed in around 1-1/2 weeks from the time we received the escrow paper work, which we thought was good.

The seller however, made 2-3 calls a day 2-3 times a week to me personally at work and home and sent numerous emails wanting to know what was going on and what the holdup was, each one more hostile than the first. The communication accused us of lying and being other than forth right in or efforts because he was able to get his end done in 1 day.

Even though we still wanted to complete the purchase we made an offer to the seller that the seller could stop the transaction and look elsewhere. We thought that from his actions he was either not who he presented himself to be or found another buyer.

This only served to incite him further and he sent even more derogatory emails to me.

This caused my husband to insist on an investigation by our attorney of the transaction, which delayed the closing even further. Despite all of this we still closed by the date the seller had specified in the contract.

On top of all this as an enticement to purchase this particular timeshare the seller promised to provide a $100 "refund" to us as soon as the closing went through because he had made a "mistake" on the purchase price on the contract when he wrote it up and would have to start all over again to fix it. This should have been a flag to walk, no run away from this seller.

This is money, no doubt, we will never see judging by the actions this seller has done. Another lesson learned. Get the contract right from the beginning.

The bottom line is if a seller is unreasonable in their expectations it causes suspicion and both parties start getting anxious about the transaction. This particular poster may not have had the same situation as we did. But perhaps this poster may have come across differently than it appears in this post.

It is not always as clear cut as this post presents.

This was our personal experience and not all purchases are the same. I am only sharing this experience we recently had to possibly help others in future timeshare purchases on the resale market.

There's always two sides to every story .... thanks for posting yours. The first time the seller would have harrassed me at work, I would have dropped the purchase then and there no matter how good of a deal you may have thought you had ..... this is uncalled for. I've sold 9 timeshares and had frequent communications with each and every buyer ...... many were emails and some were verbal phone conversations .... you sort of get a gut feeling of what a person is really like during communications.

I had one person to back out after I had paid Bidshares $50 for his winning bid .... that was before they were free, however I explained to Bidshares the situation and they refunded my money to me.