Key West Real Estate Horror Story No. 10

Today's blog is another in my series telling tales involving real estate gone bad. Previous blogs dealt with death and destruction. Today's tale is but a report of a deal gone terribly wrong where I imagine the participants shrieked to the heavens when they discovered a ghoul had got their goat. I am a reporter of this event and not a participant.

Several years ago the principal broker of a large real estate company in Key West decided to list his personal home for sale. I will call him "Phil".

The principal broker of an equally large real estate company, who I will call "Charles", was the buyer's agent for a buyer I will call "Frederick of Hollywood" which fits his persona to a "T". Read on.

Frederick offered to pay more than two million dollars cash for the Phil's home. That amount was very high at that point in our local real estate market. Charles wrote an all cash offer on behalf of Frederick to purchase Phil's home. Details were agreed to by all parties and the deal moved into escrow.

Weeks passed and the closing date drew near.  Guys from the moving company showed up at Phil's home and removed all the family furnishings from the house. Closing day arrived. Phil (the broker/owner) showed up that the closing with his wife. Charles, the buyer's agent, showed up at the closing - he was about to get a big commission. The only person missing was the buyer.  Telephone calls were made. Buyer could not be reached.  Phil declared that the buyer breached the contract and opted to retain the escrow deposit as liquidated damages. That's one of the prime reasons for having an escrow - to ensure performance by the buyer.

The problem is the Frederick of Hollywood, the buyer, never paid the escrow. Neither the listing broker/owner (Phil) nor the buyer's agent (Charles) bothered to verify receipt of escrow deposit. The closing agent wrongly assumed Phil or Charles had collected the escrow.

This really happened.