Home sellers Beware...

Okay, so I wanted to make sure that we had this guy's earnest money secured before I posted this story, and I was initially going to use his name, but...

They say never get into a pissing contest with a skunk...and with his pretty frosted hair and black roots one can never be too careful.

So, anyway, please pass this story on. We would have been blindsided if not for a very random cab driver I had a few years ago who told me to be careful if we ever sold our house to a developer. He said some developers in Chicago would refuse to close, or tie you up legally so you couldn't sell your home to anyone else. I thought that couldn't really be true, because I figure the laws are supposed to be there to protect you. But then it started happening to us...

(So, in the interest of clarity, since I can't use his name...let's just call him Scummy McScumbag, shall we?)

We were supposed to close on our house this week. But, we had some doubts about the sincerity of our buyer, Scummy, who had signed a contract with us. Here's an article about some of what this guy has been doing to others. He's one of the two boys who doesn't play very nice.

So, anyway, because we were getting ready to write a huge check of our own to purchase another property, I asked our lawyer to please get ahold of McScumbag and make sure he was planning to close. But, his lawyer, who actually works directly for his development company (even though was trying to pretend the whole time not to be a developer) would not return our attorney's phone calls or emails. So, our lawyer contacted Scummy directly via email, and he responded with an entertaining email of his own.

Scummy stated that he unfortunately would be unable to close on the contracted date as his appraisal came in saying our property was overpriced, so he would require a $40,000 price reduction and an open-ended close date in order to proceed. Interestingly, he never had an appraiser come through our home. Mr. McScumbag didn't even have an inspection, but honesty and truth do not appear to give him great pause.

Here's the big issue for me, though...

Had we agreed to those new terms, for a $10,000 'investment' of earnest money Scummy would basically own our home and any appreciation going forward--and wouldn't pay a dime until HE decided it was time to "harvest" our property, and there wouldn't be anything we could do about it. We would be required to continue to pay our mortgage, and we couldn't sell to anyone else.

So we had our lawyer tell him to forget it, and we would just take his money. Thanks, Scummy!

The worst part is, I suspect Scummy is getting away with these business practices and manipulations of the law with other people and preying on the vulnerable among us...I'm particularly concerned about the elderly, the uneducated, people who don't speak English as their first language, and young first-time sellers. His temerity is incredibly galling.

So I want everyone out there to make sure you get a lawyer when you sell your home, and if a spiky-frosted-haired elf of a man comes knocking on your door at 8 in the morning asking if you are having an open house, do your best to keep a straight face as you ask him for an obscene amount of earnest money with that signed contract, make a call to your lawyer, and then figure out what you're going to spend his money on.