[quote=walterwhite]Unless they find a sucker who doesn’t inspect.
So under what circumstances do I not get my deposit back and how likely is that?[/quote]
If you have not exhausted your contingency period in your contract and have a contingency there on the condition of the leachfield/septic tank, you can get more professional opinions of the cost and permits needed to remediate.
If you don’t like what the reports say, you can submit them to the lender-seller (requesting a dollar amount from them to help in remediation) or back out of the purchase based on them refusing to. If that happens, you can get your earnest money deposit back from escrow.
Hopefully, you did not already sign off on this particular contingency or your overall approval of your “property inspection” contingency!
scaredy, I seriously can’t imagine that a potential buyer would NOT have a septic tank/leachfield inspected on a property where the current seller was not required by law to prepare a Transfer Disclosure Statement or disclose any problems they “knew” about (from whatever source).
I also can’t imagine that any lender would want to lend on a property with these problems. And “all-cash” buyers are typically sophisticated enough to professionally inspect.
