On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 18:20:17 GMT, "Travis Jordan"
wrote:

CID wrote:
am I correct to say that if they accepted my offer VERBALLY during the
original deal, are they ethically or legally force to go through the
deal?

do I have any legal ground to raise some hell on this?

Don't know about BC, but here in Florida an offer to purchase (and a
commitment to sell) aren't valid until presented in writing. Since all
parties to the transaction understand that it isn't a legal or ethical
issue.

Am I right to say the whole thing sounds very suspicious? not able to
contact the owner agent for 2 days.. making my offer wait and wait..

It sounds like the buyer may be psyching you out. They are under no
obligation to accept or reject your offer within the timeframe you
specify.


An offer that is not accepted is inherantly rejected. You are under
no obligation once the deadline for acceptance has passed and the
seller is not under any particular obligation to you directly unless
they accept your offer. Sometimes, people do go out of town or are
just hard to reach, deal with it.

As the OP above states, most places require that real estate contracts
*must* be in writing to be enforceable so anything else is probably
not...I don't know about Canada, got some odd variants on English
common law mixed in with other oddities so check locally.

I must say, I don't think this person should be buying a house until
he learns a few things about contract law in his country/province.

Maybe some negotiating skills also. I don't mean this as a personal
attack but you really don't sound like you quite know what you are
doing.

There's a strong element of gamesmanship in buying and selling a
house..seller wants every penny he/she can get and you (any you) want
the place for free with the seller picking up the property taxes
too...grin.

Be glad Canada doesn't use full Brit real estate tactics...in England,
seller or buyer can renege on the deal right up until the actual
"exchange of contracts", what we Yanks call "closing" and sellers do
this freuqently as they may get a better offer at the last moment
(called 'gazumping', I beleive). In fact, a standard practice now in
makng offers over there is to require that the seller will pull the
property off the market if the offer is accepted.

Buying a house is not for the weak of heart or feeble of mind.
Pick up a couple of books and read up on real estate law for the
prospective homeowner and tray again.

Good luck,


Jim P.