Realtor® Legal Tip – Friday morning contract law refresher.
Suppose this happens:
Buyer makes an offer.
Seller counters the offer.
Buyer counters the Sellers counter.
Seller then sends a Notice of Multiple Offers form to the Buyer after receiving 2 other offers.
The Buyer decides to go back and accept the Sellers counter (the time for Acceptance on the counter had not yet expired).
Is there a valid contract?
No.
Why? Because once the Buyer countered the Sellers counter, the Sellers counter was no longer on the table for the Buyer to accept.
In other words, once you counter (or reject) an offer or counter offer, you can’t take it back.
There are a variety of “what if” situations that could change the outcome here but you get the idea.