I recently received a call from a broker that had represented a seller on the sale of their home. The deal had closed a week prior, but the buyer had just now arrived at the property and they were upset to find it in a mess. Even though my broker had not represented them, the buyer’s first instinct was to call the seller’s agent for relief. After explaining to the buyer that they were not responsible in any way for enforcing the contract between that buyer and seller, the compassionate listing broker still made the effort to deliver the unhappy message to the seller.

The purchase contract clearly stated that “seller shall clean the interiors of any structures and remove all trash, debris and rubbish from the property prior to Buyer taking possession.” Based on this language, the seller was clearly in breach of contract, but how does the late-arriving-buyer find a remedy? Where did this buyer go wrong?

The contract also clearly stated that the Buyer reserved the right to walk through the property within 5 days prior to closing to verify that seller had maintained the property and cleaned the property as agreed upon. Since this buyer never visited the property prior to closing, they did not know the true condition of the property and in essence gave up the power to enforce that part of the contract by funding the sale even though the terms had not been met.

Even though the buyer had closed without performing the walk through, that action (or lack of action) did not automatically waive the seller’s responsibility to perform. But because the seller already had money in hand, the buyer was left with only two options. 1) rely on the good will of the seller to come back to the property and clean out the mess, or 2) take the seller to court to find relief, which would be time consuming and costly.

The problem with both of those options is that the seller is long gone and has no intention of coming back to clean up his mess, and litigating the solution may be more costly and time consuming than it is worth.

If you are a buyer, the moral of this story is that you (or your broker) should always take the time to view the property prior to closing so you can retain some leverage with a seller who needs the proceeds of the sale to move on to their next home.