Buying or Selling a Home/property suite.

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Expert: - 10/25/2007


Question
I made an offer on the house. the house was foreclosed and owned by the bank. They gave me counter offer and i excepted. All communication was done via e-mail.Three hours after our acceptance of the counter offer we received an e-mail stating that they are receiving multiple offers and now they are selling to the highest bidder. Intern asking me for a new offer. Was our former contract via e-mail a valid bind that should prevent them from taking any higher bids? or do they still have the right to take the higher bidder even tho we had excepted there counter offer?

Answer
Dear Mandana;
Under normal circumstances, an agreement becomes a binding contract once the acceptance is communicated either to the other party (in this case the Sellers) or to their agent.  If, however, your acceptance was not communicated or if they were taking back-up offers, or if all parties had not signed the counter offer then there was still time to accept other offers.  The key is to prove that there was acceptance (in writing) of the offer.  You may need to consult an attorney to look over all of the conditions since there could possibly be some wording that allows for multiple offers even after acceptance of an offer.  Banks do things a little differently and there are intermediaries who negotiate but are not authorized to sign off on a deal.  Usually a contract must be signed by the authorized parties and this could be why they still accepted other offers.

~Jessica Bryan

Buying or Selling a Home

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Jessica Bryan

Expertise

buying and selling process such as:
General questions from first time buyers
How to market a home
Why choose a REALTOR
How do I find a REALTOR
Should I consider buying or selling without a REALTOR--how much can I save
Should I remodel or move
How much can I expect to gain by fixing up my home before selling
Helpful tips when selling
Helpful tips when buying
finding a good mortgage loan
what is the difference between banks, mortgage bankers, and mortgage brokers
Questions from the general public, people thinking about getting their real estate license, newly licensed.
Fellow professionals who have interests in networking and how to get started
What is a market evaluation and how does it differ from an appraisal what are the different loan programs
services a REALTOR can perform
when to use a lawyer
when to use escrow
what are the regional differences in the buying and selling process
what is the MLS and how does it work
how can the layman access information on the web--listings and other information
These are just a few of the questions. I can suggest that if I am unable to answer a question I will refer the inquiry to a source that can.

Experience

Anyone who is in this business and who dedicates oneself to professionalism has continued to take classes and along with it,additional credentials, awards and honors. I can list a host of them, but my greatest accomplishments happen to be those of getting first time buyers (who didn't think they could afford to buy a home)into a home of their dreams. The look on their faces when I hand over the keys is worth all of the hard work.

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