Buying A Home
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Terminating an Offer

Hi all.  We put an offer in on  a house yesterday.  It is everything we have been looking for in  a house...good location, spacious rooms, huge backyard.  However, the house is in our 3rd choice of school district and there are power lines that run over the backyard and the towers are about 3 houses down from the house we made the offer on.  I think we are going to terminate the offer.

Problem is I love the actual house.  It is just what we have been looking for (and we have been looking for over a year).  I can picture us there, but I don't know if I can get over the towers and it not being one of our top school district choices, both of which are extremely hard to find a house.

So...has anyone ever terminated an offer before?

Re: Terminating an Offer

  • Have the sellers accepted your offer? Do you have a signed contract/purchase agreement?
  • No.  Still negotiating...going back and forth on counter offers.
  • What are the towers of.  That would be my concern.  Are they letting off any kind of radiation?
  • imageamyrec:
    No.  Still negotiating...going back and forth on counter offers.
  • If you haven't already, research the school district on www.greatschools.org

    School districts was one of my hang ups when we were looking. Whatever school DD started K in was the school district that I wanted to graduate from.  Currently we live in the best one in the area, but my concern was being a half hour away from the elementary school in case of an emergency, and also we do not have full day K. I would spend so much time driving back and forth getting her off and on the bus that it would be insane.

    The area that we are moving to is 2 points lower on the rating scale that the website uses, but they have full day K, she would be going to the best elementary school in the district (rated the same as the elementary school she would go to if we weren't moving, and the extra curriculars and sports are not as die-hard competitive at this school which means something to me.

     

    I have no advice about the towers... Can they be blocked from view by planting trees? Are they something that you would see from every single window of the house or just as you were driving away?

    imageBaby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • imageamyrec:
    No.  Still negotiating...going back and forth on counter offers.

    Sorry. Dup post - could not delete. If the ball is in your court and the sellers have countered your offer you can just walk away saying that you didn't like the offer they gave. As long as you have not come to an agreement with them that has been signed by all parties you can walk away. Once an agreement is signed, it is a legally binding contract and sellers could sue you for breaking a contract. It is tough for sellers to do that, but they can, and it is within their legal right. Another way you could walk is if you have an inspection of the home and the inspector finds stuff you dislike, you can walk away then legally and just state that you don't want to deal with it.

    By the way, all electrical devices give off electromagnetic radiation (to answer a PP's question)...little things like alarm clocks and then definitely power lines. You will find mixed research on this as to whether or not it's dangerous and cancer-causing. But being realistic - electrical things give off electromagnetic radiation plain and simple. If you can get out of this - I would. Bleh to power lines. Bleh.

  • We went under contract initially with buyers and 2 days after they had accepted our counter they got cold feet and backed out. It sucked. Legally they had 3 days to back out for any reason (not sure if it's like that everywhere but where we are there is a 3 day rescind period). If you are going to back out, back out now - don't drag the sellers along anymore. It was hard on us as sellers having buyers walk out of a signed contract for seemingly no reason (that they shouldn't have known before). The power lines were there before - you should have thought of that before making an offer. However, since you are in negotiations, I'd just back out now. Or, figure out what the house is worth to you with the power lines and don't budge from your price. You can tell the seller that's all you feel comfortable paying given the power lines and see what happens.
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  • If you are going back and forth, just tell your agent you have decided you want to walk away. If you were the last one to make an offer/counteroffer, then you need to tell your agent to get their agent on the phone and let them know you are rescinding the offer. Since you don't have a contract yet, there isn't really anything else you have to do.
    Daisypath Anniversary tickers Image and video hosting by TinyPicImage and video hosting by TinyPic *This is not legal advice*
  • We walked away after we went under contract to buy a house. We lost a $500 deposit but it was for the best. If you're already having doubts, I would not move forward. School district is important.
  • We terminated an offer on one of the house we were looking at. In NJ we have attorney review so it wouldn't have mattered if the sellers had accepted our offer because we would still have 10 days of attorney review to back out for any reason plus the inspection. 

    We were initially sold on the house itself because we had been looking for so long and it was the best home we had seen. But as we thought more and more about the location we just became less comfortable with our decision and decided to back out. We ended up finding what we feel is a better home in a much better location so we feel we made the right decision.

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