Lease to own contract

[Amandagirl0420]

What is the name of your state? MO

Here's the issue....what are the laws on lease-to-own contracts? Can we raise the price of the house at signing to include the rent already applied to the down payment? As it is we only give a portion of the monthly rent to the down payment. Can we apply all, but raise the price of the house to include the money we held back? Please advise where I can find laws regarding this issue.
Thanks!

[nextwife]

Is a contract/agreement already in place? The terms of any valid agreement must be met, and cannot be changed after the fact.

Will the buyer eventually be getting a mortgage and paying a balloon payment? The house must be able to "appraise out" at the price that the sale is based upon. A lender will NOT agree to an inflated price to base the financing upon. Underwriting guideliens by their lender may prohibit the application of 100% of rent, because that will be as if the seller is "giving them the downpayment", which most underwriting guidelines prohibit.

[Amandagirl0420]

There is no contract in place yet, it was just an option I was trying to pursue. It won't really be like giving the house would it if we raised the price?
for instance....
$100,000 house - $750 a month in rent. if applied all rent to house purchase, $18,000 at end of one year. Then if they purchase house, raise the price to $118,000 instead of $100,000 giving them the $18,000 for down payment. It would give us back the $18,000 wouldn't it in the long run? Is this ok to do?

[nextwife]

Will they be financing the purchase eventually? The lender will not allow the loan calculations to be done on a sale price above appraisal. So if the house would only appraise at $100,000, then all financing ratios will be based on $100,000, regardless of what you sell it for. The lender will figure, for example, if the LTV ratio for financing is to be 80%, they will ONLY give a $80,000 mortgage on a house worth $100,000.

[Amandagirl0420]

Yes, they will be financing the whole amount after the 1-2 year period.
So for example sake...if the house appraised over $100,000 this scenario would work? But if that's the case, wouldn't the price of the house raise since it's worth more?