I received a question via Contact Request rather than as a comment on the post that I assume comes from an earlier entry on ColumbusBestBlog.com. The question is NOT about Columbus or Central Ohio, it is about Rhode Island. Previously about earnest money on ColumbusBestBlog.com :
“Kiss your $2,500 earnest money deposit goodbye”
“If sale doesn’t close, can money be refunded in FSBO deal?”
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—- Contact Request —-
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Date of Request: 11/18/2007Subject: earnest money
Message: i gave 1000 check made out to my agents co. for the purchase of a house in rhode island…i noticed the check was cashed before we even set a closing date. are they suppose to cash the check or hold it until closing?? what if the deal falls through??? what happens to my 1000Contact Method: By Email
Name: _____ _____
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MY response:
1. Read your contract, what does the contract you have with the seller say about the path your earnest money will take during the transaction, when it will be deposited, what happens if the transaction does not close.
2. If you are incapable of reading your contract for some reason have your real estate agent read it to you and ask the appropriate questions re: what will happen to the earnest money in your transaction, when it will be deposited, what happes if the transaction does not close, etc.
3. Hire a real estate attorney in your area who can read and interpret for you what is supposed to happen with the purchase money by Rhode Island State Law and whether the licensee is following the contract and state laws regarding depositing earnest money.
Real estate is local.
Only a real estate attorney or a party to the contract or the real estate agents who negotiated the contract would have the information you are seeking about your transaction.
With the purchase contract used in the Central Ohio area by members of the Columbus Board of Realtors, the earnest money would certainly be deposited into an earnest money account per the terms of the contract… at least the way the contract is pre-printed, the earnest money is deposited immediately… any terms negotiated in the contract re: earnest money to the contrary (deposited upon accceptance of the contract, deposited after home inspection, deposited on Friday or Tuesday (a specific date, I’d assume), deposited contingent on something else happening, depositied when closing is scheduled (I don’t know why closing date would be used for a contingency for the earnest money to be deposited… but it could be I suppose as long as a seller agreed to it…) All that would be negotiated between buyer and seller in the terms of the purchase contract.
At least in our local, Central Ohio Columbus Board of Realtors Purchase contract the readers questions:
“ what if the deal falls through???”
and
“what happens to my 1000″
are carefully spelled out in the contract to the parties to the contract, buyer and seller. I would assume the purchase contract in Providence R.I. would spell out the answers to the readers questions but I sure don’t have a way of reading that contract…
nor would I…
Good luck in Rhode Island…
