Wait for the appraisal to be completed. Lots of things about this deal sound bad.
First off most lenders require your downpayment money to be seasoned. You are saying that your downpayment money is in a bonus check somewhere and that just seems peculiar to me. Generally 60 day seasoning is required but what do I know? I am not a loan guy.
How long is your notice to perform? I would advise you not to remove your appraisal contingency until the appraisal is done. They cnanot cancel escrow until that notice to perform is served and the response time is passed. Check your contract and see what was written in there. Has the appraisal already been completed yet but not delivered to the lender? You need to let us know how far along things are.
I think that you can at least stall for a bit to try to get some more time until the appraisal comes in. I think you (your agent) should be able to tell them, look, no way we can sign off on the appraisal contingency until we get the appraisal completed.
As far as the 140k being put into escrow, no they cannot keep 140k of yours. They can get liquidated damages and that is that. Generally there is a 3% cap on liquidated damages.
