Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
We recently made an offer on a home. We made the offer on a Friday. On Sunday, we were told to expect a counter offer on Monday. Later Sunday, the owner received a second offer, and submitted a counter offer to the second offer. Is this legal? Don't they have to resolve ours before entertaining another offer?
3 Answers from Attorneys
Don't they have to resolve ours...?
NO.
You made an 'offer' the owner is free to accept, reject, counter, or simply ignore, which he did. You have no 'rights' to anything from him. And, your real estate agent should have been telling you all this, not attorneys after the fact.
Mr. Nelson is correct, especially about the fact that your agent should be explaining to you how the home purchase process works. Do you really think there is a law that the seller has to respond to offers in the order received? Do you think they need a time stamp to prove when each one came in so they can respond in order and you can sue them if they don't? Do you really think there could be a law against a seller receiving as many offers as come in, looking at all of them, and then countering or accepting the one they think will give them the best deal? Really? A law against that? Sounds like you have no clue what you are involved in and need a real "hand holder" agent to help you.
I agree that the answer is no. A seller can ignore an offer if he wants. He can accept a lower offer if he wants. An offer is an invitation to accept and thereby to form a contract, but has no binding effect on the offeree unless and until accepted.
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