B
BOB REU
Guest
hello, my wife and i thru our relatives became aware of a building lot that was for sale in the area where we have been looking to build (pennsylvania). the person selling the lot turned out to be a friend of mine whom i was aquainted with a few years ago. this person has since moved to n. carolina. i contacted him by phone, asked him if he could maybe do a little better on the price and he said he would discuss it with his wife which he did and we then agreed on a price. i contacted a lawyer he drew up a contract, my wife and i looked it over and agreed on it's contents. this particular property has been on the market for around ten years. the only reason it had not sold is because the utilities did not run to the property. after numerous meetings and calls to the water gas and sewer companies i was given a fiqure of what it would cost to run these lines to the property. my wife and i agreed that it would be worth it to us. during these ten years the owner has had numerous contracts with realtors that expired. there were no signs on the property when we went to look at it so we assumed the owner was selling the property to us on is own thru family contacts(i.e) his in-laws and mine. the day my lawyer was to fax the owner the contract i noticed in the newspaper that the property was being advertised for sale thru a realtor. i contacted my lawyer right away a told him of the situation. he advised me to get the owner under contract as soon as possible and any problems that arose was the owner's headache. i still did not feel right about this so i contacted the wife of my friend in n.c. she assured me that if the contract with the realtor was still valid that they would "pay them to go away" with that assurance i instructed my lawyer to fax the agreement of sale, which he did. my lawyer also told me to have the land surveyed to make sure i was getting what i was paying for. i contacted a surveyer and 2 days later a crew showed up and surveyed the land. the price for this was $300.00. another couple of days passed without our receiving the contract from n.c. so i called the owner he told me he had been ill and that they would be sending the contract thru the mail the next day. another 2 days passed and i called the owner (long distance) again. this was friday morning 4/12. he told me he mailed the signed contract out the previous night. saturday came no contract. monday 4/15 no contract so i placed another call to n.c. i was told the owner was not available. 10 minutes later my attorney called me to tell me that the owner had just informed him that he received another offer from a client of the realtor. this is where it gets very peculiar, my lawyer then informs me that if there is any type of struggle between the real estate co, owner and us he could no longer represent us because he is also counsil for( get this )the real estate co. involved!!! my lawyer told me to try and contact the owner to see if i could either match or outbid this other offer. my wife and i tried 4 times but he would not take our calls. frantic at the thought of loosing this lot after so much time and money had been spent, we called a realtor that had worked with us in the past to see if we could counter offer. our realtor was informed that a contract was faxed out to the owner that morning monday 4/15 and the owner had signed it. my wife and young son were crushed at the news. my question is do i have any recourse as to the money i spent on the survey and all the time and effort i and my wife put into this. obviously i cannot contact my so-called lawyer any advise would be deeply appreciated. another aspect of this is the owner did have some 3 or 4 conversations by phone with our lawyer about the contract. which he did agree upon thank you