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writes:
I recently found a house to buy. We agreed on a purchase price, put
down our money, and signed the contracts...all we had left to do was a
set a closing date. The seller took a while to set the date but since
all papers were filled out etc. we packed up our house. Today we were
finally going to recieve the closing date but when we got the phone
call, the realtor told our realtor that they had recieved a higher
offer and because the realtor did not sign one of the papers, our
contract is null and tanother family is now buying the house....is this
legal? Where did I go wrong. Please help!

The correct answer to this question is: "It depends."

Unfortunately it depends on a ton of bits of information that we semi
anonymous usenet pals aren't privvy to. The specific contract (there
are at least as many "standard" contracts out there as there are local
markets). Which paper your realtor apparently failed to sign. What
words were on that paper. The state the property is located in, where
you were withing inspection and attorney approval windows, whether
the sellers held up their notification obligations in the contract
they signed, etc. etc.

The only thing that is pretty clear--your buyer's agent isn't all that
on top of things if they let the listing agent slow-play your offer
like this and use it as a means to lure another party into the fray.
Maybe the sellers didn't like y'all for whatever reason. Maybe you had
a home sale contingency attached to your offer, maybe they weren't
confident of your ability to qualify for the loan, maybe they just
wanted some sort of offer to try to extract the biggest $ from buyers,
who knows.

Your lawyer will tell ya that if you have a properly signed and
executed contract and all things are within timelines specified in
that contract, the sellers may be obligated to sell to you for the
agreed upon price. But evne then I wouldn't expect them to be
terribly cooperative with the rest of the process (inspection, repairs
of findings upon inspection) if they have a higher offer waiting, and
hoping for your contract to fall apart.

Best case, you're in a bidding war situation. It's gut check time to
determine how much you like this property and what you're willing to
pay.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/