Well, it sounds like a mess. You were in the right to begin with, a deal is a deal. Period. As to the changes the seller's lawyer wanted to make, if they were insignificant, your lawyer should have contacted you to ask if you would agree, just as a courtesy. The seller's lawyer was in the wrong to say he was putting the house back on the market.
Then there was the whipsaw part, first you have the house, then you don't, then you do. That gets a little touchy for me to shoot from the hip about. I really can't comment on that. A deal is bilateral and enforceable by either party, but if one of the parties asks to call it off, and the other party agrees, the first party can't come back and enforce it. So the fact that you gave up part of the deposit indicates to me that there probably still was a contract, and that someone bungled the communications. Maybe.
The fact that your lawyer did not send you a bill would tend to indicate that he did not think he had done anything worth compensation.
I am using a buyer's agent to negotiate for me, if you had your own agent seems like he/she should know the real story. I am also using a lawyer I trust, who specializes in residental law, for legal stuff, because it is a specialty. They just got me out of a potentially nasty mess, and it hurts to have to eat the money, but it's cheaper in the long run. IMHO. |
