A lot of people think that they don't need a real estate agent. That's because they don't know what can go wrong. Paying a small commission can save you a lot of money WHEN GOOD DEALS GO BAD.
When buying "Dream House" everything went smoothly. Inspection, financing, docs, etc. Except for one little title issue.
When you sell a house you are responsible to provide a clean and marketable title. If you still owe money or don't even own the house completely, it has to be cleared up before or when the house is sold. The seller's agent chooses a title company, and the title company makes sure it's clean and clear.
The buyer's agent used a different title company that actually did it's job. Apparently a 20'x300' strip of the property for sale had never been deeded to the current seller. Essentially, the sellers unknowingly had been using and tried to sell property they didn't ever own...Yes. It happens.
The seller's title company refused to communicate with the seller's title company. They insisted they could and had cleared title.
At closing the buyer's title company insisted on seeing how the seller's company cleared title. Turns out the seller's title company didn't even know about the problem and never checked if they did. Suddenly, closing was canceled and now the sellers were in default.
A Real Estate Purchase Contract (REPC) is a bilateral contract. That means that both the buyer and the seller are committed to the transaction. The buyer has to buy and the seller must sell, with certain exceptions. If the buyer doesn't buy, the seller keeps the earnest money. If the seller doesn't sell, they must match the earnest money. In either case, the defaulting party may be responsible to pay agent commissions as well.
In this case, the seller could not provide clean title. They would be responsible for matching the earnest money, commissions, and some repair costs. In total almost $20k. All because the agent used a bad title company.
The seller's agent blamed the buyer's agent, but the fact is that it was the seller's responsibility to provide clean title. Luckily, the buyer's agent was amazing. He convinced the seller's agent to tell the seller's title company that they needed to honor their commitment to insure. They insured despite the title defect and the transaction was completed.
Long story short, if it wasn't for the buyer's agent, the sale wouldn't have happened. The seller would have been on the hook for $20k, and no one would have been a winner.
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