Bank Tried to Sell me a house they didn’t own then Ripped it away from me

My husband and I are first time home buyers. We found THE house in the “someday we will buy a house in that neighborhood” neighborhood. It is a bank owned home so that made it affordable for us. We submitted an offer that was just under the asking price with a $5000 towards closing costs from the seller, it was accepted. We met every deadline, provided all documents, Paid for all inspections and appraisals, re-appraisals, etc.

Two days before the scheduled closing date we are told that the Deed in Lieu process had not been processed yet had not even been STARTED and that it was a “lengthy process” and they would have to do an extension to mid-October. We signed the extension, but were told that the asset manager at the bank refused to. That he was changing positions and was angry that the deal had not closed on time and he would not be able to get his cut from it. We had to wait in limbo until this past Monday when the new asset manager took over. On Monday we were told that our old deal was dead and that we had to re-submit our offer and see what happened. So we did that, and received a counter offer removing the closing costs assistance, adding a clause making our earnest money non-refundable and pushing the close date to December.

We are a young family with a little boy who has had his life turned upside down. Our apartment is packed because we were supposed to move this past weekend; I have been in tears for days because I thought I was getting THE house! And now it has been ripped away from me because someone didn’t do their job properly and then someone else wanted to get a few more dollars on a house that had been taken away from someone else who had probably loved it just as much as I do.

I am told that the banks do this “all the time” and there is “nothing that can be done about it” and that is NOT OK! How can a bank sell a house that they do not legally own? How can they not disclose this from the get go??

7 months ago  /  260 notes