dbd33

Congratulations, that's pleasing.

I loath the buyer of the house in the Beach. The sale should close on Friday. They just called to arrange for an appraiser from the bank to come and value the place. Firstly, it's in chaos, half packed up, and secondly, if the appraiser doesn't come up with the right value, the chain collapses. This, of course, has nothing to do with the price of fish but it would be the second failure to honour a real estate contract in course of this move and a good warning to Brits who have faith in the Canadian real estate system.

Souvenir

Thanks. That's one thing I cross off my list of "things to kill myself about this year".

How in the name of buggery can they call in an appraiser at this late stage? You haven't closed the sale but surely the waivers have been lifted? Can they pull a stunt like that now?

Have you dealt with appraisers before? If not, a word of warning. They low-ball. The appraiser we had forced upon us in Oakville reckoned the fair market price for our place was 205. Our realtor had a rather better feel for things and sold it very easily and quickly for 225 (near as dammit).

Novocastrian

Ouch! I suppose the offer was conditional upon the buyer being able to get a mortgage for $x? Surely they should have done that within a few days of you accepting their offer?

dbd33

The offer had a financing condition which they waived ages ago. The problem is that there's no practical sanction, if the buyer walks then we have to walk from our purchase. If they lower their price at this stage then we have a big problem.

Yes, I've dealt with them before but in this case I don't know what amounts are involved; if the proposed mortgage is only for half the sale price then there shouldn't be a problem but I'm guessing it's a high ratio mortgage or they'd just value from the postal code or by driving by.

dbd33

Those clauses just say something like "the purchaser shall satisfy himself that financing can be arranged" it doesn't have deeper meaning than he/she thinks it'll be ok.

Rich_007

Fingers crossed for you on this one dbd.

Your realtor ? I would think there was more security to this in the conditions way back when ?
A lesson to us all surely.

Rich.

Butch Cassidy

Novo you obviously need to spell check your posts more.

Calgal

As a buyer I would NEVER purchase without that phrase in the offer!

All pretty standard in my experience - buyer makes an offer, which is often 'conditional' on inspection, financing, or whatever. Deal is never 'done' until each condition has been waived. Finance institutions offer the loan based on their appraisal being satisfactory to them. If the property was priced according to market, then it shouldn't be a problem unless there is some serious issue.

All usually formalities, but until each condition has been waived, there are no guarantees and the buyer can use any one of them to pull out. We've had it done to us, and we've done it, too.

As for appraisals; the last mortgage we applied for was a very high ratio yet they didn't do a physical appraisal. Which surprised me. If they saw the state it's in however; they just might regret that

Steve_P

This most likely has nothing to do with the buyer except that his/her Bank is insisting on the appraisal. If the property was sold at a reasonable cost then you have nothing to worry about.

During the recent stampede to buy homes in Calgary last spring people were paying well over the odds for homes and then finding that in order to complete the purchase they had to arrange secondary financing as the banks would only give them mortgages based on the appraised value.

Bank appraisals are pretty standard procedure as far as I know.

So if anyone is to loathed it would be the bank not the buyer.

Cheer
Steve

dbd33

I don't think y'all are getting what happened here. The buyer had a standard "financing" condition in the offer and waived it back in December. An appraisal just before waiving the condition is common; we went through that on the property we hope to buy. What's not common is for the seller to find that, three days before closing, no financing is in place, even though the condition was waived.

I think it's a ploy and that the buyer will say that the bank refused financing and offer a lower price, on the assumption that we'll take it rather than let our purchase fall through. That would be ill advised. We've an American in the house so we'd take the litigious route, suing both the buyer and the seller who reneged on our agreement to purchase in January.

The listing agent gave us a cruise when he thought the deal was done. I wonder if he'll want that back.

Calgal

If he waived it, AND all other conditions have been removed - then he's legally bound to see the deal through at the agreed price - sue the bassa!

dbd33

That'd be profitable for the lawyer but no use to us at all. I don't think there's any practical way to enforce those Agreements of Purchase and Sale no matter what they say on the face of them. Still, the deal's not dead yet.