Home buyer backed out, on a whim.. can I sue?

Question

In BC Canada: buyer eager to purchase multiple homes in area, approached me, offered to buy my place, escalating price 3x. Second offer in writing, signed. The *only* contingency was financing. Money was not an issue, evidenced by the many homes he purchased in my area.
After a few months of his efforts to buy, i ok'd the deal privately, countering his offer by email as we had been routinely emailing. He quickly accepted. I did not ask for a deposit due to all his efforts (my mistake).
I found a new home, got an accepted offer via an agent, with contingencies. Within 1 hour of my buyer knowing i had an accepted offer elsewhere, he calls and tells me his brother was not happy with the deal he accepted days ago, and cancelled.
I feel he needs to prove his only contingency, financing. I asked for reasonable effort: 3 banks and the official responses, all which will be shown in court.

Do i have a case? and can i sue to help the other affected folks (seller's agent etc)?

The contract is exceeding simple: His signed offer to buy was subject only to financing. No time limits, no expiration date, no home inspection, nothing. Essentially it said: "I will buy your home for $xxx subject to me getting financing". This man and his family have bought many homes in the neighbourhood, financing is apparently not a problem.

My perspective: the cancellation was calculated. Knowing i *had* to move, *had* to sell to get my financing, my belief is that this was purely a move to get me to a lower price. He agreed to my only counter-offer of the entire deal within an hour.

I have complete logs of the emails between us, including the IP address of where his emails come from, and the eddress can be completely identified with him, so i do not believe this form of communication is null and void, as evidenced by the quantity of email evidence in the courts today.

Thank you all for your time and consideration.

Dear Enigma, as i mentioned, it states "subject to financing.." not "subject to suitable financing.." but thank you for your input.

Answer 1

Typically the only thing you would have been entitled to is the earnest money deposit (which you didn't get). You cannot force someone to buy a property, and it doesn't sound like you got a signed contract (since you said the deal was agreed upon through e-mail). The financing contingency in a standard purchase agreement is covering the earnest money deposit, not the actual purchase of the home. Should the borrowers financing fall through, they get the deposit back. If it doesn't fall through and the buyer backs out for a different reason, the buyer loses the deposit.

That'll teach you.

Answer 2

unfortunately, it sounds like you didnt really have a binding final contract, seeing as you countered over the internet. if you had a contract there would be a part that says:
>if the buyer does not pay the seller thus amount on the completion date as follows, the buyer forfeits all amount to the seller etc.
>next time go to a lawyer and get a legal contact, there free and easy to fill out.

Answer 3

If you sue, you should have all those affected involved and bring a group or class action law suit against the guy. I think your chances will be better if the court can be made aware and consider the bad faith that affected a number of citizens.

Answer 4

No it does not say subject to being able to get finance it never does.

What it says is subject to being able to obtain suitable financing.

If he does not like the financing option he can back out, financing is subject to being suitable to him not you and not the bank.... Move along to next buyer, your going to be wasting your time and money.

Answer 5

Depends upon what your contract says.