We don't want to sell our home

What is the name of your state? MA

Back in January 2001 I completed a form on the internet to get a free house valuation. The realtor looked at the house and told us it was worth no more than $295K. We had not intention of selling but was just curious.

Two months later he calls and tells my husband and I that he has a buyer who is will to pay $350K site unseen. The next day the buyer looks at the house and two hours later we get a form called an 'Offer to Purchase' by fax.

Our realtor told us the form was just a formality to agree the price should the sale go through. He told us that the 'Purchase and Sale agreement' was the legally binding document and we would need to get ourselves a lawyer at that point.

We signed it believing that we still had time to decide if we wanted to go through with it. Until the phone call we had no intention of selling but the price seemed exceptionally high according to our realtors valuation two months earlier.

The purchase and sale was left on our door step a week or so later. By the time my husband and I had read it we had passed the signing deadline. We thought the deal was off and told our realtor that we didn't want to sell.

Now we are being sued by the buyer and have been quoted a case of Toby and MacCarthy in which the circumstances are quite different to ours. We simply want to keep our home. We have a lawyer and have just been depositioned by the buyers lawyer.
At the end of the deposition the buyers lawyer shouted at us saying that we didn't have a case and god help us if the interest rates go up.

I have two questions:
1) Is he right? Can they win this case and force us to sell our home?
2) If they win and the interest rates go up can they sue us for the difference in mortage amounts?

We realize that we were naive to sign the offer to purchase and trust our realtor but we still want to try and keep our house.
Please advise,
thanks

[HomeGuru]

Only your own personal attorney would be able to help you as there are too many issues involved.