Questions and Answers Segment

Question: Can a seller ask buyers who claim their finance was rejected to provide proof?

Answer: Only if it is in the contract.

When a seller is presented with a contract of sale on their property and it is subject to finance, the seller will often ask "If they don't get the finance, can we ask to see the proof from the Bank?".

The answer to this is unfortunately is "no". While all contracts rely to a certain extent on "good faith" there is no obligation on the buyer to produce evidence that they have made an application for finance or what the outcome of that application was. What we can do however is add a special condition to the contract that will at least give you some protection from the buyer who simply "changes his mind" or "find something better" and that clause should read:

Should this contract be subject to finance and such application is declined by the financier or approved on terms not satisfactory to the buyer, further to the terms.

Seller's solicitor the seller shall be under no obligation to refund the deposit monies to the buyer.