Homebuyer Tax Credit
If a house is contracted to sell just a shade over $800,000, is it illegal to re-negotiate the price down to $800,000 to take advantage of the homebuyer’s tax credit and pay the seller’s closing costs to make up the difference to them? If the difference exceeded the closing costs would a cash payment be…
If a house is contracted to sell just a shade over $800,000, is it illegal to re-negotiate the price down to $800,000 to take advantage of the homebuyer’s tax credit and pay the seller’s closing costs to make up the difference to them? If the difference exceeded the closing costs would a cash payment be illegal?
Since no one else has answered this, I am going to offer up what I think based on some things I have read.
If this were an all cash transaction, I suspect that it would be ok, as there would be no banks involved. But since I suspect there is a mortgage involved, I will offer what I had read at some point: no money may move between the buyer and seller outside of the contract. I suppose it would be legal to make these payments so long as they were part of the contract, but if they are being done on the side, no.
I only read this in the NYT Real Estate section several years ago and outside of that, I am not qualified to speak on this topic.
Steve