Should a House Under Contract Be Forced into Pending Status?
Saturday, January 7th, 2012I read an article titled “Are sellers bound by” MLS rules”?” recently on a real estate news web site that topped my curiosity. The post is an answer to a question posted by buyers (a couple… I'm presuming) who had a purchase and sale agreement on a place in the PGA West Nicklaus Tournament Course neighborhood. Seemingly the purchasers weren't satisfied about the fact that 48 hours after acknowledgment of the contract, the MLS standing for the house was still at active in opposition to outstanding. They wanted it changed. They asked the seller’s agent to change it, but they refused. The consumers needed to know if they had any legal recourse.
The blogger, gave a long reply in which she talked about whether the vendor and agent were legally certain to not show the house, and also whether the MLS should oblige and change the status. I totally agree with her reply. But what I could not understand was why were the consumers so concerned about the house still being on the market in the first place?
Every standard real estate purchase contract is legally binding on the vendor; to paraphrase, the seller can't sell the property to another party so long as the house is under contract. There is no risk to the buyer so long as they go through with the sale.
Is it legal for the seller to show the house? I do not know. Why should it count? If I have the house under contract, and the vendor cannot sell the house to anyone but me as long as I close in the stipulated date, why should I care?
I can do my inspections, I will do my evaluations, I'm able to apply for a loan, I will get approved for a loan, I'm able to close on the house and get the keys; whether or not the seller has 20 other offers on the house. Therefore why should I care?
If anything, folk viewing the house and making offers on it are the ones that should care; especially if they suspect it’s still active by virtue of the MLS standing. Why take the time and energy taking a look at the house and going thru price negotiations with the seller? The same goes for the real estate agents looking up the house on the MLS and not knowing it’s pending, they're wasting effort and time also.
As Ardell claimed in her response, it is completely fair for the vendor to receive back up offers – as long as they let the customers know they're, in fact , back up offers. And why wouldn't they? They can not sell the house unless the active contract falls thru.
Another thing that puzzled me about the question was that the purchasers mentioned that their realtor had asked for the status to be modified. Instead of doing that, why didn’t the realtor help the purchasers relax by informing them that it didn’t matter since they had the house under contract?
Now, there's always the chance that a different contract was used, in which there had been a clause stipulating the seller could essentially sell to somebody else. But then I must wonder, why did they accept the contract? And if they've just now found out, where was their realtor? And isn’t there a 7 to 10 day period during which the buyers can back out? I don't know… The question just struck me as terribly weird.
If you're interested in buying PGA West Greg Norman Course homes for sale or PGA West Palmer Private Course homes for sale, you can hop on over to Kimberley Kellys awesomely ingenious website to learn more.