Okay let’s make sure we all agree on terminology. What you have submitted is an offer to purchase. It is not yet a contract unless it is accepted and confirmed by all parties. So until the seller and the lender agree to the terms of the offer, nobody has an obligation to pay for or do anything.
Now, if you have not reached the stage where there is universal acceptance by all parties then everything is still up for grabs. You can ask, they can counter, you guys can go back and forth. This is standard procedure for resale homes. HOWEVER…let’s look at the practical nature of short sales…. this is where having an agent who has more experience with some short sales under thier belt is crucial.
Getting through the short sale process is a b-tch. The last thing you want to do, and I have said that ad nauseum, is to go back and forth with the negotiator. Each time you do that you may be costing yourselves weeks. Call me pessimistic but your rate lock will more then likely expire prior to this escrow closing. Good that it was no cost to you but it did involve them running a credit check on you which kind of sucks.
Okay so yeah what I am saying is that the way to go about short sales is to make an estimate of what you will need to rehab up front and put it in the purchase agreement. Total it all up and say buyers request a credit at close of escrow for $x for non recurring and recurring closing costs, repairs, and/or remediation. That way there is no renegotiation necessary. So yes in your purchase OFFER (notice I did not use the words contract) section 1 repairs may be covered. However, when the short sale negotiator sits down to see if they will accept the sale, they will look at the estimated HUD to see what they will net. They don’t build in a few thousand bucks here or there for repairs or remediation. They look at the numbers and if they work then at that time they go, okay I will accept it. Let’s roll. Similarly they may also come back and say we accept but will not pay for repairs or any remediation. You never know.
Okay so right now you have an offer submitted. Did the sellers accept your offer yet? Obviously the lender did not. Now if both the seller AND the lender accept the contract, and neither of them counters the section 1 request you made, then yes at THAT time, one of them is contractually obligated to pay that fee.
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As for the property being in escrow, from a practical nature indeed, that does benefit you as long as you did not give them a deposit. Why? Because they will not submit additional offers to the lender. Of course this is only true if the sellers actually accepted your offer contingent on lenders acceptance and they are not marketing the property.
Did the listing agent actually move the property into pending status on the MLS?
While an escrow may have been opened you technically do not have a contract in place yet so there is no obligation by either party to either party. I would agree with ur in the sense that if I was the listing agent I definitely would not have gone through the execise of opening escrow and I surely would not have moved the property into pending status.
