A Seller Decides To Keep A Buyer’s Life Savings

A Seller Decides To Keep A Buyer’s Life Savings is a sad blog post to say the least. There's a video of the news story there as well. It's set in the New York City area, and no mention is made of Realtors in the story, only attorneys.

When a lender learns a coop building is on leased land, the loan is denied to the buyers. The seller keeps $26k+ in deposit as down payment, relying on the clause that allows them to do so because the buyers had a "commitment letter" from the lender. Read the post and watch the video for the whole story.

In my area, there is a condo project right in the heart of the tourist and old town district. Every time a unit is listed, I get inquiries from my web site because the units are priced low for that area. It's because they're on a land lease, and at this time, the lease runs out in 11 or so years. Every inquiry gets an email from me right away disclosing this fact. I have yet for a buyer to pursue one of these units after this email.

It's too bad that this buyer couple didn't have someone looking out for their interests. New York real estate transactions usually are handled by attorneys I'm told. It appears this couple weren't using one early in the process. Whether it would have made a difference is open to question.