Q: No contract for home that I’m buying from a friend . Lived here for over 10 yrs and now I found out he sold months who.
Bought house from friend for $95k with 9% interest!!! Monthly payments $980. Lived here for 13 yrs. I have made repairs to home , he has made insurance claims and collected checks but only repaired some things. Told him we wanted to sale so he offered us $30k to walk away that’s after deducting the cost to fix up and repair things for sale and the taxes that I personally thing should
Have been included in payments. Look the property up
Online and see he actually sold the house 5 months ago. He has yet to inform us he sold, he has yet to give us the $30k however he is still collecting our payments every month.. is there anything that can legally be done seeing as everything has been a verbal agreement. At this point I would say we are more so renting then buying but in either situation is there anything that can be done insure we get our part of the $?
A: Generally in Texas a sale of real property must be in writing to comply with what is called the statute of frauds. The statute of frauds is a long standing tradition stemming from old common law that protects against verbal allegations when it comes to certain types of legal transactions. This legal defense would make it difficult for you to make a claim against the property itself however it does not bar you from bringing claims for fraud, reimbursement for the repairs you have made to the property, among other legal remedies. As always, this is general legal information and should not be construed as final legal advice. Legal advice that you will use for a final decision should ONLY come from a more formal consultation with a competent real estate attorney. Good luck!
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