Hello all,

I would like to seek opinions from fellow friends here (and would be best if you can provide your professional ones).

I engaged an agent for the purpose of buying a property. I have signed the Letter of Offer to Purchase for a property on 29 June 2015, and the seller signed the same agreement on 30 June 2015. Both signing process was witness by the same person (the agent). Booking fee of 3% was paid on 29 June 2015. Below are the clauses in the agreement.

1. 10% of the total price should be paid upon signing of S&P
2. Balance 90% to be paid within 90 days from the date of signing of S&P
3. S&P must be signed within 21 days from the date of acceptance of seller. In default of signing the S&P:
a) by buyer (provided there is no delay from the vendor/vendor's solicitor), deposit will be forfeited
b) by seller, deposit will be refunded (and will have performance cost shared between agent & buyer)
4. Stamp duty clauses
5. Handling over property clauses
6. GST clauses
7. Offer of Purchase is subject to acceptance of seller. If not agreed, deposit shall be fully refunded without any additional cost
8. The offer letter is a binding contract until S&P is signed
9. Deposit receipt clauses
10. If loan is not approved or approved less than 90%, deposit shall be fully refunded

For the info, I did not manage to secure any loan until the date of 31 Aug 2015 (21 working days after signed acceptance of buyer). The agent and seller agreed to wait for me to secure another loan (no written agreement for this). I managed to secure a loan last Monday but have yet to sign (or even see) the loan agreement. The loan approval was conveyed by phone call & WhatsApp message only.

My question is, if I would like to cancel the purchase now (25 Sept 2015) on the ground that I am no longer interested with this property, do the seller and agent have the rights to forfeit my deposit?

Thank you in advance for the input.

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Added info:
- I do keep all WhatsApp conversation and e-mail for my reference

This post has been edited by stfu: Sep 25 2015, 11:57 AM

Totally yes !

Can you enlighten me on what ground to they have the right to forfeit the deposit? As per clause 10, I shall have the right to get my deposit back.

Yes...your deposit will be forfeited

if you are not able to secure any loan, you should have gotten a reject letter from bank (eg: from 3 banks), show to agent and seller.

if you are not able to get 90% loan, get the e-copy of offer letter from bank, show it to agent and seller.

Can you enlighten me on what ground to they have the right to forfeit the deposit? As per clause 10, I shall have the right to get my deposit back.

cluase 10 mentioned that you are not able to get a loan or less than 90%..but from my understanding you are able to secure the loan??

I did not get any reject letter from the bank. The bank officer informed me that my loan was not approved through phone call. Both agent and seller know that my loan was not approved before as they were also contacted by the bank officer.

Yes correct. However, I only managed to get the loan last Monday (21 Sept 2015), which is already beyond the date of 21 days I should sign the S&P (last date should be 31 Aug 2015). If I get the loan before 31 Aug 2015 and decided to cancel the purchase, then I agree that my deposit is forfeited. In my point of view, the agreement is no longer enforceable due to clause 3, clause 8 and clause 10.

ask the bank to issue you a reject letter, they should do that.
i assume you are not doing your loan application via 1 bank only, ask those banks who rejected your loan to issue you a letter, 5 min job.

Thanks for the advice. Already requested, but not sure if I can get it by today as I understand quite a number of people are on leave today due to prolong holiday.

no problem and happy hunting, you are in a good position on nego for a lower price in subsale currently as the market is not that good.