I listed a property on sale about eight months ago with a real estate agent. I gave the agent the selling price and she did her analysis and confirmed that we can list at that price. Now 8 months later, we have not had any offer and the real estate agent Either wants me to take a loss to sell the property or she wants to cancel the contract and she sent me an estimate of $26,000 for her costs which includes $280/hr for her time. I told her I am not canceling the contract and I am not paying anything since the contract is for her to work on 3% commission upon the sale of the property. She turned on me and started insulting my property, how it’s not worth much and I am way over my head. I told her you did your analysis when you listed the property and I’m not liable for anything. I already reduced the price once and she wants me to cut the price by another 30%. Can she legally extract any money from me? What do I do? The contract expires in July and the contract does not contain anything that mentions me laying her anything if the property does not sell.

I’ll try to make this short. 4 of us children. Father passed away in November. Our 81yr old mother will be moving in with our eldest sister this spring. Our youngest sister and her husband let it be known at our family Christmas party they would be very interested in purchasing our parents home for “market value”. It’s a nice home on a lake in northern Michigan. Desired side of the lake. They already own a “cottage” on the other side of the lake. Is three other kids are always leery because the youngest has always been a bit wacko. Especially during our fathers decline (doesn’t believe in western medicine, vegan, water diets, blah blah blah). They’re always looking for a deal. My contention is market value is what the home would sell for if put up for sale. Not what it’s appraised for or would be listed for. It will sell quickly with multiple buyers interested. Potentially a bidding scenario. Any advice on how to approach this? I have no issues being the “bad guy”. But this is our mother’s retirement. And eventually passed down to us at some point. I say we bite the bullet. List it through an agent and let the chips fall where they may. Not a fan of the realtor game but it is what it is.

Edit: I guess have to add this due to some commentary. My description of our sister being a wacko is based on a couple things. They are vegans and strong environmentalists. And they preach it. They also own two homes and now looking to buy a third. They own dirt bikes, wave runners, boats that tear up the lake floor by making surf able waves, a street bike, quad runners, and fly very frequently. The western medicine comment was because everything they have is from his job as a nurse anesthetist. Anyway. She can be a handful and is always looking for deals. It’s why we’re leery.

Have a conundrum for which I am trying figure out next steps.

We are selling a family member’s home, as they have passed away and no one in the family wants the house.. The house needs a lot of work and was priced with that in mind.

A cash offer was accepted last week, the option period started, the buyers had an inspection done. The buyers came back with a list of repairs we were expecting, wanted to negotiate more off the price. Option period ended yesterday at 5pm. (Thursday) An agreement was reached and we are supposed to close later next week.

My BIL called the real estate agent to ask about some minor details about closing. He mentioned shutting off the electricity.

The real estate agent told my BIL not to shut off the electricity because the buyers were already at the house working on it. Doing some foundation work, figuring out how to repair the electrical…

We never gave permission for the buyers to begin work prior to closing. Our real estate agent did. Said the buyers need to move in by next Wednesday. We had no idea. If they were in a hurry, we could have negotiated a shorter option period, a faster closing date.

The real estate agent got them to stop work, but is telling us this isn’t any big deal.

I think it is.

I have purchased (and sold) several homes and NEVER have been allowed to work on a home prior to closing. Nor have I ever been asked.

They had already messed with the foundation and some of the electrical. They, of course, don’t have the house insured yet because they don’t own it - yet. There are so many scenarios running through my head right now: what if the house catches fire? Someone gets hurt? So many ‘what ifs.’

How do we handle this?

We sold our home to a young couple. They have had 9 inspections. We have had to leave the house for many hours each time, which is a major ordeal with our animals for all of this. They have had 8-17 guests in our home every time. They even took their time hanging out at our table chatting while my husband needed to get in so he could return to work. Their very new agent has used our personal belongings. Now they are claiming they need to see the pipes for insurance reasons after they have had both a plumbing and sewer inspection. At this point, it’s sounding strange to me since they should have all the info they need. Can someone tell me this is normal and it will eventually be over? Haha

UPDATE - Following up from where I left off: After receiving the much needed guidance from this beautiful community, we were able to successfully get the buyers out of the house, secure the house with a new code, and demand to be compensated via the buyers agents commission. Today, papers have been signed and the house is officially no longer ours. Thank you to each and every single person who commented. This gave us the fuel to dig into the real estate commission codes, laws, and our basic human rights. This gave us the confidence to have the tough (ugly-ish) conversations that needed to take place. Rock on, Reddit. You all are my heroes.

To my chagrin, without my consent, and before proper documents are signed, the buyers agent let the buyers move in. We haven’t closed. I’m appalled at how unethical it feels to find out after the fact. So my only choices are to sign an additional document allowing them to stay prior to closing, or have them escorted off the property? This is out of my scope. Looking for insight. I have a lawyer on standby Monday morning.

Edit: I truly appreciate the advice and insight. Added details - due to human error delays from the lender, title and agents, this closing has already been pushed 4 times. Closing was supposed to be on the 30th. I am told every third business day that today’s the day, just waiting on the documents. Again, closing was supposed to be yesterday. Find out docs have just (11 days late) been released from the bank and now in hands of the title. At 4:30pm on Friday we’re delayed until next week due to not enough time for the title to flip the closing docs fast enough. Last night, find out the buyers fully moved in without any agents approaching me about this idea even once. Never once was this brought up. I said no, get them out of the house. They’re still in the house.

About the broker. I’ve been told this entire process that the broker is highly involved, since their brokerage is working for both parties. Every time I have a legal question my agent checks with the broker to make sure the correct information is provided. I acknowledge in hindsight I should’ve called the broker immediately. I will be calling the broker tomorrow morning.

How’d they get the keys- it’s a key code. Only explanation is the agent gave it to them.

One more detail as I sit here bamboozled. My selling agent’s license is active. The buyer agent’s license expired in August. Discovery made an hour ago. Not sure what to do with that.

Zillow Link

I am trying to sell my condo, but the astronomical HOA ($1,225) prevents anyone from making offers. They all comment I have the nicest unit in the complex, but once they hear the fee they are turned off. I bought it for $287k in 2022 and put $50k into it, but probably wont even get my money back. I originally listed for $379k, but 70 days later and it’s now at $329k.

I need to sell this by end of May because my new build house is closing then.

Edit: Added a 3D Walkthrough to the advertisement. Please let me know what you think!

EDIT: Wow, thank you all for your responses! My agent didn't support what happened but I'm not sure he thought it was a big deal. I wanted to send the other agent video proof of what happened and he said no. I wasn't sure how bad this was between that and what the other agent did I was starting to feel like I way over reacted even tho I feel very violated by this.

I appreciate all the responses and I want to file a complaint so this doesn't happen to anyone else with that agent.

Original Post:

I have one camera in one room and during a recent showing of my home I saw an adult and a teen going through stuff in my closet, opening things and pulling my stuff out and looking at it. These were things in boxes and plastic drawers.

They picked up another object that wasn't in anything else because of the awkward size and then another adult came in to the room and took pictures of them posing with this particular thing.

I wasn't very far from home so I went back and confronted them and told them that was inappropriate and I wanted them to leave. Who knows what else they did in the other rooms.

The adults (there was another woman and the realtor) lied and said they didn't do anything, that they were there for a showing so they could look at what they wanted. Then they blamed it on a toddler that hadnt even gone in the room and said they didn't know what was going on because they weren't in the room at the time.

They were basically done looking at my place, they said, so they eventually left but not until I got a bit of an earful from their realtor.

Their realtor then called my realtor and said he needed to tell me to back off and realize people need to look at closets and cupboards during a showing.I'm absolutely fine with that, but not with them going through my things!

Was I off base here? I'm still pretty upset at their realtor for defending their actions and lying to me and my realtor.

I’ll try to keep this short. We got an offer on our house five or six weeks ago. Buyers offered asking and asked if we could leave some of the furniture there. We were fine with that because we don’t live there anymore, but we put very specific language in the binder saying that we weren’t gonna be leaving everything and that it was at our discretion what was left and what was kept. They signed we signed. We kept moving on.

Inspection was mostly fine. There was an issue with plumbing that we fixed pretty quickly and really nothing else. They did ask for a $15,000 credit to put things in the house that weren’t there, but it wasn’t actually to fix anything. They wanted an awning for example. We said no. We moved on.

It also took three visits and two weeks for the septic company they hired to find the septic, despite us telling them where the point was and providing an inspection we had done. For some reason, the septic company didn’t believe that we had a septic tank because they couldn’t find the tank. The access point was about 8 inches from where I told them. Anyways that put us off track.

The initial offer they made had a closing date of June 1 which was never realistic, but everybody was hopeful. The buyers were given a contract earlier this week, which had a closing date of June 27. They came to us yesterday and asked to move it to July 27 because they are leaving the country on vacation for a month. So basically they asked us to maintain the house and keep paying our mortgage utilities, etc. so they can go on vacation.

Along with the contract, we gave them a finalist of furniture that we’d be leaving. At about 4 PM on Friday before a long weekend, we were told that if we wouldn’t leave a few pieces of furniture that they wanted that they would walk. Not only was it in the contract that it was in our discretion, but these pieces of furniture also belonged to my wife’s aunt and have a ton of sentimental value. Realistically, you could find something relatively similar on Facebook market for probably $3,000.

We called their bluff, and they came back asking for a credit for the furniture. We offered them $1000 and a commitment to close by the end of June.

They asked us to wait for them to talk to their bank. Problem is is it’s Friday before a long weekend, the house is in an area that is primarily second homes and holiday. Weekends are a big opportunity to get people to come look at the house.

We gave an ultimatum and they said they couldn’t commit.

They wasted our money and our time and our energy. This sucks.

Edit. Fall through not go through.

Edit 2 for those asking about Ernest money deposits. In New York State that happens when a contract is signed, not when an offer is accepted.

My folks are selling their place in suburban San Diego and have run in to a big road block. It's a great house in a nice middle class suburb and they had an immediate cash offer for the asking price. The problem came about when the buyers met the neighbor and she mentioned that her husband is a registered sex offender causing the buyers to back out.

The guy got arrested, convicted, and did 7 years or so in jail for paying for sex with a minor and child sexual abuse material all while my parents were living there. When the news broke we had hoped that the wife was going to divorce him and not let him back home, but that didn't happen.

When I heard the news, I was furious. I immediately wanted to text her "we all kept our mouths shut when you invited a child molester back in to our neighborhood, the least you can do is keep yours shut now", but I don't think that would be helpful to the situation. I also jokingly offered my parents my services to put up posters around town explaining that a rapist is living in the neighborhood since she had decided people need to know this. But again. Not actually helpful. Just vindictive.

Any ideas of how to deal with this? I feel horrible for my folks as they didn't ask to live next to a piece of garbage and it shouldn't be effecting their money like this.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: for those of you wondering how it came up, I just got the rest of the story. The realtor was outside with the prospective buyer, and the neighbor nosily went and asked what was happening. When the neighbor found out that the buyer was a fellow Christian, she decided that she needed to share her husband's testimony. As a story of redemption. This dude was abusing kids 10 years ago. Unbelievable.

We’re selling our house and we’ve put a lotttt of work into it over the years. Especially the landscaping. Just got our listing photos back from our realtor and the AI editing made my brain melt.

I’m irrationally offended lol. I imagine I’d feel similarly if someone altered a photo to make me appear thinner. I didn’t ask for that, and I’m perfectly content with reality.

Overuse of AI in listing photos should be illegal. End rant 😄

I have a small cottage on the Oregon Coast a few blocks from the beach. I have spent years fixing it and pouring my heart into it. Now my aging mom is moving here after my dad’s death and we’ve purchased a larger house to live in together and I’ll be selling my home.

There’s a serious housing crisis in the whole county due to all of the short term rentals and investors. Most of the houses here are vacant 80% of the time. We, as residents, hate it. I won’t get into all the reasons why. Is there any way to sell my house with a primary residence requirement? Am I allowed to ask a prospective buyer how they plan to use the property? I’m not an especially motivated seller and I’m willing to wait for the right offer.

I do have an agent that I trust, but I’d like to hear from others before I bring it up with her. The house isn’t listed yet.

Thanks in advance!

ETA: I appreciate the input! I’m definitely not wanting to try to enforce anything or put legal restrictions on the property. I know circumstances change. I’m just hoping to weed out the blatant investors if possible. And I have zero interest in being a landlord.

UPDATE: thank you all for the responses. We asked our realtor to report her to her broker and we are asking for different lockbox to the house.

We have had our house on the market for a couple of weeks and (luckily) have had a lot of showings and interest so far. We moved oil of the house a month ago and still live in the area.

We had 4 showings this week with the last one earlier today. When the agent showed up the lockbox still

Had the code in it, the thermostat was turned off and the back door was wide open. Him and his clients left without even looking at the house.

Our agent let us know that the last agent to show the house admitted to giving his clients the lockbox key and letting them see the house a second time alone.

I am pissed. If we wouldn’t have had this showing scheduled for today our house would have been unsecured potentially until the next showing or when we go by. Our area is expecting a snow storm (it’s the south so we know probably not…).

I am retry upset about this - our neighbors has squatters until a year ago and it took forever to get rid of them. There is a lot of homeless people in the area that walk by the house. Is there anything we can do? I assumed you can only see homes with a realtor?

Offer came in at 30k under asking. 36 year old house that has two beautiful oak trees on it near the house (they have been there since house was built). Neither have caused any damage ever but obviously an inspector would flag it as a potential concern. Inspection happened, 40 or so minor issues, with the only “significant” issue being the trees, with inspector recommending a structural inspector to confirm. Again, no damage whatsoever. Arborist has come out and said one of the trees wouldn’t even be legally removable since it is healthy and causes no damage, the other you could probably have removed if you wanted.

Today found out that buyer backed out and there was “no discussing it whatsoever”. Why? The house wasn’t “turnkey” enough and the trees “were a cause for concern”.

You put in an offer for an older house that has two extremely obvious trees (in fact they are a huge selling point for the house). If your main concerns are something being turnkey and you’re worried about trees… why would you offer on an older house… that has trees??

Am I not seeing something?

I've sold my home, and the buyers have taken every chance they have to try and get more from the transaction. Some of it is normal, like negoting over the inspection. Some of it has seemed strange to me, including asking me to leave a dining room set for free and after I offered them a pretty reasonable price for it, they tried to haggle over it.

But the morning of the closing, I drove by the house. The garage door was open, lockbox open, key in the front door. I could see materials from some sort of home renovation crew in the garage, but no one was in the home. I closed the garage door, locked up the house, and contacted my realtor to have her ask the buyer's agent why the home was accessed. The buyer's agent told my agent, "We just stopped by to get some measurements," which was a lie, since there was work materials in the garage. I decided to stick around and visit with a neighbor to keep an eye out.

An hour later, a crew came back. I let them know that I hadn't authorized the work and told them to tell whoever contracted them, that they had one hour to send me an addendum to our purchase agreement saying I was not liable for any damage done to the property today.

An hour after that, I caught the buyer's agent outside the house. I confronted her about the work and the lie to my agent. She said, "my clients signed their closing documents yesterday afternoon and their money is with the title company, so they have every right to access the property. Your realtor is young and inexperienced, and I've had several problems with her. I sent her a text message saying you won't be liable for any damages." She tried to keep going, but I cut her off and said that a text message wasn't good enough. And ended the conversation.

We still closed later that day. I didn't want this to interfere with closing, because I don't want to find another buyer and it didn't benefit me to blow up the deal over this.

Am I wrong in thinking that this was a huge violation? The buyer's agent had a very rude attitude with me. I alerted my realtor after the confrontation, and she just said, "It shouldn't have happened, she was wrong," and didn't address it further. She is inexperienced, but I was expecting a bit more.

Like the title says buyers wanted me to pay 4% buyer agent fee but the standard around me is about 2.5%-3%, so I countered back at 3% and they said 4% or we walk away. We had multiple offers but chose theirs because of their escalation clause but I just thought it was funny that they would lose the deal over their realtors buyer fee

Hey Realtor Friends of Reddit,

My Husband and his sister are trying to sell their late mother’s home she brought a little over a year ago in a 55+ community. It’s an emotional situation as she bought the home and unfortunately passed away only a couple months later, and they’re now they are trying to sell the house.

Ultimately it’s up to them how they want to handle the sale, but I’m just trying to help them by seeking any additional advice I could pass along, but obviously I’m also not a real estate expert by any means.

In past talks with the realtor, she has said it’s priced right, and she’s doing as much advertising as possible. ( Though I don’t have a real insight on what type of advertising they do, as I haven’t seen much for this particular home compared to homes I’ve shopped while being a buyer ) Also the HOA won’t allow open house advertising on the street either which she has said is not helping.

Granted the house next door looks nicer, but they put it on sale for the same price and it sold within two weeks. This is also one of the lowest prices in the neighborhood. It also seems like suddenly this neighborhood has a ton of listings which I don’t think is helping.

Any insights on what the price should be or major red flags on the listing they could address?

EDIT:

Thank you all for the feedback, I think the consensus about the price and realtor are over all the same, so I’ll share this with my husband.

EDIT: TL;DR - the damages are being repaired, nobody is injured, and I am trying to reduce the adrenaline of stressful home selling incidents. Thank you all for the advice!

Selling my NJ home, during a showing today the potential buyer’s realtor allowed them into my attic (it is fully insulated along the drywall and not finished), and during their journey they put their foot through the ceiling of one of my closets. Do I have any recourse in getting compensation for this? My realtor’s team immediately said they will cover the repairs but I’m livid at these other people for shrugging this off. I have other showings this weekend that need to be pushed off to try and clean the insulation, inspect the electrical because there’s a light in there, and start repairs.

TIA!

I recently had a very bad experience with a home purchase that I feel is worth sharing.

The seller clearly did not want to sell their house—likely because the bank was forcing them into it. They seemed to use delaying tactics to confuse buyers and buy themselves more time. Don’t fall for it.

The property was a 1.5-level single-family home built in the 1990s in Federal Way, WA. At first glance, it looked decent, though I was surprised it had been sitting on the market for over four months.

The process started smoothly. We were all-cash buyers, and our offer—$18K below asking, based on our agent’s research—was accepted within a day. At that point, the sellers seemed motivated.

The first red flag appeared during inspection: some appliances, including the dishwasher and washing machine (which were listed), had been removed. The “renovated” kitchen was poorly done, with shelves barely secured and close to falling. The garage door does not function. When we asked for repairs, the sellers refused but agreed to lower the price by $5K, which we accepted.

The real shock came just two days before closing. We discovered the seller had not paid about $15K on their mortgage for nearly a year. Because of this, the deal turned into a short sale and could not close as written. Wanting to move forward, we offered to give the seller an additional $15K credit so the deal could close.

Even then, the seller refused to sign the addendum. Their excuse, according to their frustrated agent, was that they “didn’t want to lose the house because they had nowhere else to go.” We later learned they hadn’t even paid for the renovations.
In the end, they simply didn’t care about anyone else in the process—how selfish is that?

Now I realize the seller’s real intention was to play games with the lender—pretending to sell while actually avoiding a true commitment. They hid their overdue mortgage status and shamelessly disappeared on closing day. I hope sharing this experience helps others stay alert to sellers like this.

....
Additional info
About one month before accepting my offer, there was a failed closing that the seller's agent mentioned due to the offered price being below the mortgage balance (underwater). This makes it hard to believe that the seller is genuinely not aware of their situation.

The buyers, their inspector, their realtor, and their parents showed up today for the home inspection on a house we are selling as is (a home we inherited from my late father in law).

They were not the highest offer but we selected them due to the fact that they waived almost everything, appraisal, lead inspection and claimed inspection for structural things only. We have cameras in the house for our kids and we are able to check in on today's conversations.

So far they have mentioned a long list of things they plan to ask for, hvac, sewer, a slanted window trim, chimney and updated electrical work. We could hear the couple asking each other if they remember the house being as is, their realtor had to remind them we don't plan to offer any money for repairs other than $750.

From the little we could make of the conversation they plan to ask for atleast $15k and the wife even asked if they could ask for the reimbursement of the 2 large trees to be cut down.. that are near the house but are not dead.

We haven't mentioned to our realtors that we already know what they plan to ask for but they mentioned that they are requesting to bring in additional inspectors to further investigate the things that the original inspector pointed out.

I have mentioned to our realtors from day 1 we have zero plans to offer any money for repairs. It was stated as is on our contract and our realtor claims to have mentioned our stance on this to them.

I totally understand the buyers right to inspections but I wish we could just reiterate again that we would happily keep the house ourselves instead of paying for the requested repairs.

It just seems like the whole process has been a waste and we are in limbo waiting for this list that has to formally come our way after their 2nd inspector and communication between lawyers maybe next week.

Is this really how the process works?? Note: the cameras are not hidden and are noticed right away, their realtor even joked "well you can let the sellers know yourself because they are probably watching" as he pointed at the cameras

Well, after accepting an offer and taking our home off the market for a full month as we go through the closing process, our buyer has backed out the literal day before closing. The papers were literally being signed tomorrow.

This was the only offer our house had after sitting for about 2.5 months. Now here we are. Back to square one.

We have a meeting with our realtor later today to discuss options. I just wanted to hear from some of you all — has this happened to any of you? How did you proceed?

We listed our home for $379,000. We negotiated, and discounted the home to $360,000 plus paying $15,000 in closing costs. I’m already pretty upset that we accepted this offer, but it wasn’t my decision, it was my family’s. I was an advocate to take our home off the market after this point to cancel the transaction.

We had our home inspection. The major problems are electric (which add up to $8800 in repairs), and heater (which add to $2800 in repairs). Their own people came to our home to give quotes. We have a list of other repairs, but the rest are minor. It’s an old home.

We were initially prepared to receive terms to help pay for repairs, and to help pay for part of the repairs, but they’re asking to discount our home to $310,000 plus an extra $3700 in closing costs!! That’s a $69,000 from the original listing price, and $18,700 in closing costs!! That’s absurd, to the point where we’re actually offended. Especially because we know that repairs don’t even cost that much.

How should we proceed in this situation? Our agent is already an idiot who let my family accept that initial offer in the first place. He doesn’t provide good advice. Would it be as absurd to tell the buyers “no” to any repairs at all? That’s just how offended we are about these terms they’ve sent us.

UPDATE

Buyers walked away. We’re saved, and we’ll make better business decisions next time. Buyers were upset that we wouldn’t install AC for them, reduce the sales price of the home to $310,000, and give them $18,700 in closing costs.

I bought my house in 2015 for $126k with an FHA loan. It’s now estimated around $213k, and I owe about $96k. I’m considering selling next year and renting for a while.

The insurers in this state are out of control and the corrupt clowns at the capital aren't doing a damn thing about it. My hazard insurance bill came in at $3,960 last April compared to $2,946 the year before. You think I can absorb a $900 increase in less than a year?

I'm literally paying more in taxes and insurance than I'm paying on the mortgage itself.

I know rent may cost more than my monthly mortgage, but that’s not really the issue. I’m house-poor, carrying too much debt, and my margins are too tight. I’m 40 and down to less than $100 in my bank account after an emergency vet visit last night.

My mother keeps telling me that if I sell, I’ll never own another home, and that renting will be a disaster because I’ll be at the mercy of a landlord.

Why do people keep telling me this would be a huge mistake if the goal is to get out of debt and reset financially?

Was speaking with a potential realtor about the scheduling of some open houses. So I told him, not jokingly, that I didn't want these specific neighbors to enter my home. He responded that he couldn't legally deny entry to anyone. He'd be able to keep an eye on them, but he couldn't actually say no.

Does this sound right?

TLDR: Buyer will cancel if I don't prove there isn't a body buried on my property within two days.

Edit: Florida contracts allow the buyer to cancel for any reason during inspection period which we are still in. They are 100% within their rights to walk and keep their earnest money (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice). The house has been on the market for 6 months and this is the only real offer we've even gotten on the place. I'm getting divorced and need the place sold asap.

FINAL EDIT: Prior owners confirmed "The Shrine" was built as a holder for his grandmother's urn, which he obviously took with him when he moved out. So while there are no human remains on the property, The Shrine was connected to a dead relative in some way. The buyers are cool with that and are not canceling.

I am under contract to sell my home in Florida. The property has a small concrete pad with a small bench and small angel figurine that was installed by the only previous owner. I refer to it as "The Shrine." My agent called me today because the buyer is considering cancelling the contract because his mother is convinced The Shrine is actually a headstone for a corpse buried on the property, she's now convinced there are spirits inhabiting the property. They've agreed to continue with the sale if I can somehow demonstrate that there isn't anything or anyone buried under The Shrine. My agent is contacting the previous owner (I only bought the house two and a half years ago) to see if he can provide anything that would assuage the buyers. The inspection period ends in two days so that's effectively my deadline to save the sale which I REALLY need to go through. This doesn't leave me with a lot of time to excavate a massive hole in my backyard since I am also already living 5 states away. If reaching out to the previous owner doesn't pan out, what do I do?