Some durn fool made us an offer on our old house. We may soon be done with it! Only thing is, he offered $15K less than what we were asking ($10K + $5K closing costs), and that's a lot of clams. So, now we have to play the counter-offer game.
But, assuming our counter doesn't scare him away, we're one step closer to opening that bottle of Veuve that we reserved for the day we sell the house.
Update:
Counter-offer accepted. Glorious success.
That is fantastic news! Congratulations.
So how does this work legally in the USA? In England and Wales an offer isn’t really legally binding until you “exchange contracts” after which if the seller drops out they can be forced to pay a percentage of the sale price (so no-one ever does this). Up until this point though all bets are off and exchanging contract usually takes a month or two to arrange, depending on the chain, etc. I know people who have agreed on an offer only to have the buyer get cold feet 6 weeks later. Of course, you can buy an insurance policy for this… because before contracts are exchanged you will no doubt start paying legal fees, arranging a property survey, etc.
In Scotland I believe it’s different and any offer you make that is accepted is then legally binding. This was to stop “gazumping” that happens when prices are sky high and some bastard comes along and makes a higher offer. There has been talk of adopting the Scottish system in the rest of the UK.
Regarding a survey – I assume your buyer’s mortgage company sends someone round to make sure your old house is worth the money they are lending? And that it isn’t about to collapse or is located next to an ageing nuclear power station?
When we bought our current house we paid for an environmental survey that checks that the nearest waterway cannot flood your home, there’s no asbestos buried in your new garden, etc. It was pretty thorough.
So how does this work legally in the USA? In England and Wales an offer isn’t really legally binding until you “exchange contracts”
yeah, it’s the same.
at this point, we’ve accepted their verbal offer. now, the realtors are drawing up the formal contract. we’ll sign the contract, and then we’ll be prevented from accepting any other offers. (though we actually have two more showings today, so it’s officially still on the market). when the contract is signed, i believe the buyer has to put down some money, which they would lose if they pull out. once the contract is signed, i’m assuming there will be an inspection from the buyer (i don’t know if it’s required or not). a lot survey, probably. an insurance company inspection, too. bad results any of those could sink the deal. but i don’t have any reason to think they’d turn up anything fatal.
once that’s all done, we get together with the lawyers and sign it all away.
the buyer said they want to close by the end of next month, so this should move pretty quickly.
The survey (appraisal) is a huge step in the process over here, and I know of at least one recent example where both buyer and seller had agreed to a price, contingent on appraisal, and the appraisal came in low so the sale was off.
I understand the need for this sort of thing, but the system seems broken — if you can’t, practically speaking, sell it for more than it appraises, why don’t we just have the county come by and tell us what our asking price should be in the first place? Why does it come so late in the game — after the buy/sell agreement has been signed?
Huzzah!
i gotta say, that DocuSign shit is awesome. all of the contract stuff for the new house, and now for the old house, have been done with electronic signing. what a treat it is to have to fuck around with faxes – realtor sends a link, click click click, done. signed.