Good Morning!
Is your agent a seasoned or a rookie. Unfortunately this will happen anywhere
that the agent give you pre-approved letter instead of pre-qualified. BUt if are
working with a good agent tha he know what is doing it will help you.

Pre-qualified means that the loan officer did not do any verification of the facts. It is simply an estimate of the buyer's purchasing power based on an oral interview.


Pre-approval is based on verified facts, written documentation, credit reports, pay stubs, etc.

Most lending institutions have tightened underwriting guidelines that can cause a lot of frustration with both buyers and sellers when everyone thought that they were fully qualified, and for some reason, no longer are qualified.

It is the listing agent's job to continue marketing the property and solicit back up offers during the contingency period. As long as your property was marketed and never made unavailable for sale, then you do not have any damages. (IMHO)

The previous answers are well based and accurate, I will however add to your frustrations with the process. As an experienced agent myself, the credit markets seemingly rewrite the loan requirements at will. What was once an acceptable buyer can no longer be considered viable as loan requirements or conditions continually change. Simple example is the raising of credit scores recently. The buyer starts out barely making the minimum score but still a viable candidate and during the buying process, the minimum credit score is raised by the lender/investor and the buyer can no longer do the deal. Under those conditions, the buyer nor either agent is at fault. Sorry things did not work out for you.

Your "recourse" depends entirely on how your contract is structured. That will always be your guiding document on what can and can not be done.

With that said, this is not all that unusual a situation, which is why you were hopefully able to get a substantial earnest money deposit in the event this very thing happens. Your contract should have a financing provision which you should read closely, and if necessary, consult with counsel.

Unfortunately, without having the contract available for review, it is unlikely that anyone can provide you factual information.

Hi Seller
Whether a pre-approval or pre-qualification, a final approval is based on a satisfactory appraisal and title search. If that's the reason for the deal falling through there's probably not much recourse. If the buyers just werent approvable in the first place then, while there still may not be much you can do about it, in the future you should encourage your agent to contact the buyer's lender early in the process to make sure their buyers are on solid ground.

Best of luck
Tony

Unfortunately this happens quite often. There is not much that can be done if the contract has a mortgage contingency clause in it. As long as the buyer has met the deadline they can't be held accountable.