Recently, my friend told me a story about someone she knows who is selling her home. She recently put it on the market and talked one of her friend into buying it. The friend put a contract on the home and the home buying process started. However, it soon crashed and burned – not the house – but the contract and possibly their friendship.
The Story of the Good Friend Failed Contract
Both parties in this had a Realtor. The Realtors both warned their clients that they should not discuss anything having to do with the house without going through them first. So the homebuyer followed the Realtor’s advice and immediately had an inspection done on the home. Everything came back clear on the inspection and the next steps were put into place. That was until good friend seller decided to disclose a problem she had with one of the pipes in her home. She had a plumbing issue last year and decided to tell her friend about it. Of course, the friend got nervous and spoke to her Realtor about it who then contacted the seller’s Realtors. As you probably can guess, the seller’s Realtor was not pleased that this was disclosed especially since the inspection came back fine for plumbing.
This disclosure made the would be buyer cautious and the buyer’s Realtor suggested that they get an estimate on how much it would cost to replace the plumbing if something were to happen. This estimate was then added to the contract to be deducted from the home’s price.
The seller’s Realtor did not think was fair because people don’t anticipate something happening in the future and ask for coverage on it. Only if something is currently broken and needs replacing. So her advice was to disagree to the change, which the seller did.
The would be buyer backed out of the contract.
The Friendship Now Suffers
Both seller and buyer who were good friends are now no longer. They both feel they were right and think that the other is being unreasonable. The awkwardness between them may never go away, which means the friendship is probably over for good.
The morale of the story: Don’t enter a contract with a friend and definitely don’t disclose information without consent from your Realtor.
Photo: julio.garciah
