Seller Won't Return Escrow

[WoolOverEyes]

What is the name of your state? Oregon

Hello,

Here is the situation..

We extended an offer back in April of 07 with the stitualation that we attain financing. The close date was initially mid June. Seller was in pre-foreclosure..He disclosed after accepting offer that he needed bank approval. This took 4 weeks, so we wrote addendum extending date...He then said his ex-wife was on a second mortgage so she needed to sign contract he initially agreed to....We probably would have walked but we were in Ohio and wanted to get family moved in Summer so we wrote another addendum extending the date....It turns out he and he wife were not close to friendly....Seller went to court to get judge to sign but it didn't happen. Finally in the third week of July his ex-wife signed the contract so we could proceed with financing....As we all know the mortgage market turned ugly during the period we were waiting. Two lenders turned us down for fear that moving our business to OR would be detrimental and impact revenues. While waiting for financing, we filed another extension on the close date which was never signed by the bank (the seller said that unless we tried to finance through the ex-wife, that they would not ask for an extension). After second refusal we wrote an addendum to get out of the contract. The seller has stated through their agent that they will not do this until we try financing three more times. We have stated that we cannot do this as we need an address so that we can get our children in school, so we rented an apartment. The seller has since relisted his home as active, with a new asking price but he has not ended our contract.

Sorry for the ramble and any data points that are meaningless but all thoughts would be appreciated.

[seniorjudge]

What EXACTLY did the contract say about what would happen if you did not get financing?

[WoolOverEyes]

Hello,

Contract stated that: Terms of contract are contingent upon buyers being able to attain acceptable financing.

[CraigFL]

How long did the contract say you had to get financing? That contingency would have cleared and been void if it ran past that date....

[WoolOverEyes]

Hello,

There was no specifc date set for attaining financing..... "contract is contingent upon buyers attaining acceotable financing".....The only dates in the contract were for closing, attaining inspection, etc. As previously referenced the close date moved a few times due to the sellers divorce issues and their baks delays.

Thanks again for any thoughts

[WoolOverEyes]

To be clear, the next revisions/ addendums requesting extensions to our close (which was initially two weeks from when the contract was written in late Aug) were from the seller.

Thanks again

[WoolOverEyes]

Hello,

As a follow up to the above post...We submitted an addendum: "the contract will be null and void and the seller will return all escrow funds to buyer upon signature of this document"...The seller put his home back on the market and now has an offer. He has since signed the addendum but his ex-wife has not signed. Can they actually sell the home to someone if there is not a formal dissolution of our contract?

Thanks