I want my money back

What is the name of your state? Florida
We found a home we thought we might want. The house was a FSBO. My wife fell in love with the house and the property. In her first meeting with the sellers, (I was out of town) She gave the sellers $1800.00 to "hold" the house till we formalized a deal.

They wanted to do a one year lease option, with $7,000 down. My wife met with them a 2nd time to wrap up the deal & sign the paperwork. She gave them an additional $1200.00 ($3,000 total).
The sellers somehow "forgot" to bring the lease purchase agreement with them. My wife gave them the $$ anyway and they signed 2 receipts for the two payments she made.

I came back in town, met with my wife and the sellers at the house. The house appeared to have termite damage, the house was 400' to 600sq ft smaller than they advertised.

They tried to change the deal to increase the payments, then to increase the downpayment. Again they failed to bring the lease purchase paperwork to the house. They failed to provide us with an appraisal they claimed to have taken the month before. ( the house didn't match up to comps) They lied and said that it was actually a year before, then changed the story again and said it was two years before. Fact was, there was never any appraisal performed on the property.

They said the husband was a real estate agent in Florida, and he was advising them how to do all of this. He has actually never been spoken with yet, supposedly he is in there homeland in Pakistan.

I told the seller we would have to have an appraisal done on the property, and that we would pay for it. In the mean time, I wanted my $3000.00 back and after the appraisal and a home inspection performed we would formally enter into a purchase contract for the home and buy it immediately rather than the lease purchase, as long as the appraisal came out to the amount they were asking. (They were about $15,000 higher than the comps).

She refused to give me my money back saying first she would have to use the money we gave her to fix up the house before she could allow the appraiser to come! I told her she can fix up her house and improve the value all she wants, but not with my money. She told me she didn't owe us any money, and she wasn't paying us anything. I offered to let her keep $500 for her trouble and we would just back out completely. (Keep in mind a sales contract or a purchase offer on the house had never been made, there is no contract, just the receipts we have saying we gave them $3000.00. I even offered to let her keep $1000., but she would have nothing to do with it.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I think the details are important. Is there anything we can do? My wife says an attorney she spoke with at her work told her we lost the money and there is no way to get it back, is that true? Can't we do something?

Any suggestions sure would be welcome. Thanks,

Ken

[HomeGuru]

Hire an attorney (not the one that gave your wife bad advice) and sue the FSBO in Small Claims Court.
Don't let your wife handle the money. And on the next deal, use a Realtor and/real estate attorney.
Never give money without a contract AND never give money directly to a Seller.
Always give the money to escrow or closing attorney.