would it make sense for buyeronhold to aggressively pursue her deposit first, on the basis of misleading/fraudulent lending practices? the professional advice of their loan advisor to take a long term interest only mortgage seems founded on the assumption of a RE rebound, one that cannot be guaranteed or even suggested on the basis of any historical example; there’s never been a housing bubble of this magnitude before.
by pursuing the deposit first, you show that you are not interested in completing the purchase at all, you are not using the court as a recourse for gambling losses and you are proactively working to extricate yourself from a situation that you were led into under false pretenses.
while a court case could take a long time to work through, longer than the escrow, you can drop the case at a later time if the contingency clause kicks in. otherwise, you have the wheels in motion to fight for the deposit, you have a timeline showing that you were not passively hoping for the best and your position in court will be consistent.
alternatively… put your house up on the market under the same assumptions as the builder you’re buying from; that the market is not going down, that the market is rebounding, that your house is worth the same as april comps with payments made under a no interest mort. in other words, guarantee the failure of your sale.
side note/obligatory ribbing: you’re the one who pushed for a potentially disasterous decision. you dont find too often individuals who made a mistake come looking for answers; seems they usually maintain their position in a pigheaded manner. so it’s good that you’re learning, good that you’re not bullheaded about it. but at the same time, listening to your spouse, researching things together and then coming to a decision *before* signing on the dotted line would have avoided the situation, avoided the tension and avoided the outcome of being in an unbalanced relationship. your opinion is now suspect, perhaps even to yourself. that can’t be a good thing…
