Need legal advice for brother in a real estate transactions

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jjj70095

Active member
A vacant lot was for sale behind my brothers house in Illinois. Seller did not have a realtor. The for sale sign said 71k. My brother offered the seller 68k. The seller agreed to the offer over phone or text.


The contract was sent to the seller for signature. Before signing the contract, seller receieved a much higher offer for the lot and called my brother and said he was not selling it to him. Is this legal????? Didnt they have a verbal contract in place?????

It appears though the seller can accept offers until a contract is " signed".............
 
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eao

Active member
Its AI
Even though verbal agreements may seem like a deal between parties, they are not legally binding in real estate transactions in Illinois without a written contract.
 
J

jjj70095

Active member
My brothers lawyer is investigating the situation. His lawyer is the daughter in law of the sellers lawyer. She said the seller lawyer (father in law) should have called her.
 
mezz

mezz

Well-known member
No signed contract, no secured transaction. IMO, it seems kind of crappy on the sellers part though, if he were a stand up guy IMO he could have given the original buyer notice of another offer & given him a chance to make a counter offer. Sadly, the seller has no legal obligation to honor his initial verbal acceptance.
 
J

jjj70095

Active member
My brother did counter offer to 69K, but seller he said that is not even in the ball park. I do not know if the seller signed the second offer or is willing to accept another counter offer. Going to be an interesting relationship between daughter in law and father in law going forward..........
 
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Hoosier

Well-known member
To be enforceable, contracts require offer, acceptance, and consideration. Offer and acceptance can be verbal (per contract law, but good luck proving it) but consideration means some money has to change hands - it can be as low as a $1 down pmt. If no dollars were exchanged, it's not enforceable.
 
J

jjj70095

Active member
Still waiting to see what the latest situation is. The seller is an idiot. As soon as he received the second offer, he should have contacted my brother and asked if he wanted to counter offer....and start a bidding war for the lot................but he did not.....

I told my brother he can always contact the other buyer (if they did agree on a sale) and offer him a higher price for the lot.
My friend in Sayner bought a house in Florida, and sold it 7 days later after offered 100k more for the house two years ago....he had no intentions of flipping it....
 
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chunk06

Active member
sounds like the attorney is trying to waste your brothers time and money. If there was not a signed Offer to Purchase in hand of both buyer and seller by the due date listed on the offer there is not a damn thing they can do about. this is happening all the time in the market we have had the last several years. You will probably never know why he did not try to counter and have a bidding war, I have even heard of people giving cash on the side to persuade sellers. Your brother offering less than asking might have been enough to cause him to go with the other buyer, I know several people like that.
 
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jjj70095

Active member
The seller received my brothers verbal offer and asked for a day or two to think it over. After a day, he called my brother and said he "accepts" the offer.

So being below the asking price was not a factor at that point in time. It was a very respectable offer.

I dont know when the other offer was received, and dont know if the other offer knew he had already verbally accepted an offer. The unfortunate thing is there was no realtor in the process, otherwise the realtor would have drawn up paperwork for the offer and sent it to the seller to sign immediately after my brother decided to make an offer. The time delay in getting the written paperwork to the seller was the downfall. But we dont know even if we sent over paperwork for signature right away, would he have signed? Or would he delay to see if something else comes up. I assume the written offer would have a time deadline for signature.

When I purchased my house up north, I made the written offer at noon with my realtor with a 1k check, and the seller accepted within a few hours and signed. The cottage came up for sale that day and we luckily just drove by the cottage for other reasons and I noticed a for sale sign.

This was back in 1994, best decision and investment I have ever made. When I met the sellers at closing, they said "they made a mistake by selling it".
 
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chunk06

Active member
jjj70095 said:
The seller received my brothers verbal offer and asked for a day or two to think it over. After a day, he called my brother and said he "accepts" the offer.

So being below the asking price was not a factor at that point in time. It was a very respectable offer.

I dont know when the other offer was received, and dont know if the other offer knew he had already verbally accepted an offer. The unfortunate thing is there was no realtor in the process, otherwise the realtor would have drawn up paperwork for the offer and sent it to the seller to sign immediately after my brother decided to make an offer. The time delay in getting the written paperwork to the seller was the downfall. But we dont know even if we sent over paperwork for signature right away, would he have signed? Or would he delay to see if something else comes up. I assume the written offer would have a time deadline for signature.

When I purchased my house up north, I made the written offer at noon with my realtor with a 1k check, and the seller accepted within a few hours and signed. The cottage came up for sale that day and we luckily just drove by the cottage for other reasons and I noticed a for sale sign.

This was back in 1994, best decision and investment I have ever made. When I met the sellers at closing, they said "they made a mistake by selling it".
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I fully understand since I am a handshake verbal type of guy, The world of real estate can get pretty cutthroat though. It can even get more cutthroat when you involve certain Realtors into the mix. Some of those people would run over their own Mom to make a sale:ROFLMAO:
Buying a cottage in 94 was a great decision , hell even pre COVID buy was a good investment
 
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