What does verbally pending mean?
Monday, April 11th, 2011From a legal standpoint, a contract that is verbally accepted (ie. both parties have accepted the terms verbally, but have not actually signed the contract yet) is a legally-binding contract. However, in the real world, no contract is done until both parties have signed and initialled the final contract.
For example, I recently had a client write an offer on a foreclosure. In this case, all offers are submitted to the bank. The bank denied it but sent back a counteroffer. My client accepted, signed the contract where necessary and submitted it back to the bank awaiting their final signature. The offer had been verbally accepted, the bank just needed to sign off on it. Of course, this all happens on a friday afternoon, and the bank could not sign off on it before the weekend. Over the weekend, another offer comes in from a different client, and now the bank wants to entertain both offers.
In the end, legal action could have been taken, but the time and costs associated are not worth it. My client has resubmitted a higher offer and now we wait and see what happens….Bottom Line is that no deal is ever done until it is done.
