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Home buying - Seller refusing to fix problem that he agreed to in contract
QUESTION:We are first time home buyers and are running into a problem with less
then 30 days to closing. Here is the situation:
The seller accepted our offer to buy with a home inspection
contingency. During the inspection, the inspector told us that there
was something wrong with the furnace, but he was not exactly sure what
it was. His handbook of furnace models recemended that we contact the
manufacture. This was the only thing that had any major problems. We
amended the contract to drop the home inspection contingency if the
sell, at his expense, had the furnace fixed by a licesed
heating/cooling company before closing. The seller agreed to this and
signed the contract.
When the heating/cooling contractor came and looked at the furnace,
they said that that model was so bad that the manufacture had run out
of parts to fix it and were replaceing the furnace for free. The only
cost was the labor costs which would come to about $1300. The seller
then desided that it was to much and said that he was not going to fix
it and if he had to, he would rather get the new furnace installed and
sell the house for more money.
I know that we can legally walk away, but we do want the house. My
question is - Is the seller leagally obligated to fix the furnace? If
so, and we need legal representation, would the seller be obligated
for our legal costs if we win? If we have to pay our own legal costs,
we might as well just pay the $1300 ourselves to get the furnce
replaced.
ANSWER: You need to read your sales and purchase agreement to see for sure, but in
most cases I've personally seen, the seller can choose to fix the problems
found on an inspection or not. If not, then the buyer is free to pull out
and get his earnest money returned. I've never heard of, nor do I think it
likely, that an agreement says that the seller must fix problems. That is,
you can still proceed with the deal paying yourself for the furnace or pull
out, but you can't force the seller into fixing the problem unless he agreed
to this in the sales and purchase agreement. Don't count on finding this
binding clause in the agreement, but you should look anyway.
What you can do is to ask the seller how much he'll pay toward fixing the
furnace. He may pony up enough that you can still tolerate the deal in its
entirety.
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