Does the law of contracts still work anywhere? If their offer was accepted, it shouldn’t matter who else came in with any amount of money. The selling bank should be sued for breach of contract.
***Does the law of contracts still work anywhere? If their offer was accepted, it shouldn’t matter who else came in with any amount of money. The selling bank should be sued for breach of contract.***
Exactly what I thought. But, the wording in the article is a bit loose: “they accepted the offer,” doesn’t say they signed a contract on the spot. I hope they did. And I hope they win.
And what about the bank’s contract with the listing agent? I don’t think any standard listing contract allows this sort of transaction. If the owner finds a likely buyer, that buyer should still have to go through the listing agent to make a bid, and the the listing agent has a fiduciary duty to the owner to try to get a higher bid from anyone who has already bid on the house or seriously indicated they are planning to bid. Maybe realtors are doing some custom contracts with banks for foreclosed properties, though I can’t imagine why they would agree to something like this. This couple will tell everyone they know not to use that realtor/brokerage because they can’t be trusted.